


Lost in the Echo Part II

by flamethrower



Series: Re-Entry: Journey of the Whills [42]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
Genre: AU within an AU, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, F/M, Force Ghosts, GFY, M/M, Sith Obi-Wan, Time Shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-17
Updated: 2015-05-17
Packaged: 2018-03-31 01:15:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3958957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flamethrower/pseuds/flamethrower
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“The Sith had this annoying habit of creating traps within their own documents.  Sometimes it was subtle, like hypnosis via pattern and word repetition.  More often than not, they would use blood magic.  You could pick up one of these books with no intention whatsoever of becoming a Sith, and yet…it would convince you.”</p><p>“Is that what happened to you?  Insatiable need, or rewired ambition?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lost in the Echo Part II

**Author's Note:**

> Hi there! If you're new to this series, this part isn't going to make much sense. I strongly suggest starting at the beginning here: https://archiveofourown.org/series/10129 before heading over to Journey of the Whills. (Hint: This may take awhile.)
> 
> Beta Credit: Norcumi The Awesome. You should totally read her stuff.
> 
> Note the first: I have fudged the EU Legacy timeline a smidge to make this work. Just a smidge. Then again, since it's now an AU of an AU of an AU, I don't think it matters all that much.
> 
> Note the second: Tag #GFY is a new creation inspired by a bunch of absolutely *lovely* people, an explanation for which can be found here: http://drougnor.tumblr.com/post/119152866055/so-my-lovely-wife-deadcatwithaflamethrower-is
> 
> See Notes at the End for content warning that doesn't fit the AO3 warning system, and one that does but isn't graphic.

Imperial Year 26: 5/20th

Outer Rim

 

“Where are we going?”

Talon glanced at his newest employee as she stepped out onto the bridge. “Nice of you to join us.”

“My apologies. It took one minute longer than I thought it would to open my door after someone welded the lock shut,” Jade replied in a tone that could have frozen lava.

“Dammit, Aves!”

Aves didn’t glance up from the navicomp, but there was a large and entirely inappropriate grin on his face. “What? Like Tapper didn’t do that to me the first month I joined up.”

Talon sighed and shook his head. “I don’t care how Tapper would have felt about it. That’s not an appropriate way to honor his memory. Jade, take Chin’s position, please.”

Jade nodded, but when she walked past Aves, she said, “If you ever do something like that again, you’re going to be able to taste your own underwear in your sinuses for a month solid.”

“We’re going to get alone awesomely,” Aves replied. If anything, his grin had widened. Talon wondered if he was going to have to shoot one of his employees for hazing, or if Aves was going to entice Mara Jade into doing it for him.

“Aves, shut up. Jade, are you settled?”

She nodded, hands resting lightly on the controls. “You still haven’t told me where we’re going.”

“How many blockades have you gone through?” Talon asked.

Jade was frowning. “Just the once, before I took the job on Varonat.”

Talon took his seat. “Were you any good at it?”

“I wasn’t on the stick.” Jade’s eyes narrowed. “I was on weapons detail.”

“Then you’re about to find out if you’re competent at the co-pilot’s station while Torve jumps the blockade,” Talon said. “Aves?”

“Thirty seconds.” Aves gripped the rail next to his station but usually refused to buckle in. He kept his feet well, and it was good to have someone mobile in an emergency, so Talon indulged the bad habit. “There’s two more Destroyers in the blockade. You good, Torve?”

Torve snorted. “Please. It would take double that amount to be an issue.”

“The Imperials did a decent job of trying to take us out last time,” Talon warned him.

“So that’s why you pulled me off the _Etherway._ ” Torve dropped them out of hyperspace, revealing the eight-strong Star Destroyer blockade. “Any TIEs?”

“Not yet.” Talon turned his attention back to Jade. Her expression was glacially calm, but her hands had tightened on the controls. “Fire back if the opportunity presents itself, but I’m less concerned about destroying Imperial vessels and more concerned with making this delivery.”

Jade nodded, but the corners of her mouth turned down. “I didn’t know you ran shipments for the Rebels.”

“Sometimes,” Talon said, refusing to be baited. He knew Jade had been Imperial-aligned at some point, but he didn’t know in what capacity—he also didn’t give a damn, as long as she did her job. “The Lothal rebellion isn’t part of the Alliance. I suspect that will change at some point soon, but in the meantime, the contract is extremely lucrative.”

“We’re still meeting Tanno’baijii in the back of beyond, right?” Aves grimaced but kept his position when Torve misjudged and a laser blast washed over the _Wild Karrde’s_ shields. “Fuck’s sake, Fynn, watch it!”

“Stop being such a damned baby,” Torve snapped back. “Shields at ninety-eight percent and holding.”

“Different coordinates, but not Capital City, no,” Talon confirmed. “The Academy Garrison is where the Imperials have concentrated their forces.” They had been ignored their first time on Lothal due in large part to bribery, but Imperial indifference had also helped.

The Imperials were no longer so indifferent to space traffic entering and leaving Lothal.

Someone in command had finally wised up, and the TIEs boiled forth like angry hornets. Torve got them through the atmosphere unscathed; Jade only had to take down three TIEs that refused to give up the chase. The rest either weren’t as stubborn, or command hoped to take them out on the return trip.

Coordinates for the drop came in before the last TIE hit the ground. Talon gave them to Torve, who grunted acknowledgement and adjusted their course.

“Tanno’baijii, huh?” Jade repeated as the coastline came into view. Talon had been told that the Eastern Sea was still all right, but the beaches were fouled.

“Yes. Why?”

“It’s Concordian,” Jade said without turning. “But it’s similar to one of the older Mandalore marriage traditions. Tanno’bai means, “married to” but the last part is usually a name.”

“Is there anything you don’t know?” Aves asked. Jade’s cross-index of knowledge and skills had been part of the reason Talon had been pleased when she requested a job.

“How to make you shut up,” Jade returned. Aves put his hands over his heart and winced.

Damn, it wasn’t hazing. Aves had a crush, and was acting like a prepubescent boy. Shooting him might be the preferable course of action, after all.

When Jade pulled a blaster on their contact, Talon was far less sanguine about murder among his employees. “Please do not shoot the man I have a fifty-million credit contract with.”

Jade glanced at him from the corner of her eye, but then turned her attention back to Tanno’baijii. “Are you one of _his?_ ”

“Not for a long time, and technically, not even then,” Ben replied. He was doing the same sort of glacial serenity that Jade often displayed, but it was far more refined.

“‘His’ being who, exactly?” Talon asked, which reminded Jade of his presence. Her blaster lowered, but it was the grudging, slow response of someone who desperately wanted to shoot something.

“Someone we both used to know,” Ben said, which was both informative and useless. “Can we get this unloaded, please? The Imperials are paying a lot more attention to everyone and everything.”

Talon nodded at Aves and Chin. Aves slapped Chin on the shoulder and turned to go open the hold. Chin scowled, rolled his eyes, and then followed. “How’s business?”

“Booming,” Ben said, and then smiled. “Literally.”

“The hair is an interesting choice.” The dye job was a fading dark brown, but it was less attention-grabbing than red-gold. The blasters were a lot more distinctive, one on each hip and positioned for a cross-draw. Talon knew there was a hell of a lot more weaponry on the man. Ben was thorough, and if the smoking crater that was formerly the Eastwind Garrison was any indication, a firm believer in overkill.

“I was on Coruscant a few weeks back,” Ben explained. “It seemed prudent at the time, but it’s come in handy for avoiding notice on the ground here, as well.”

“Sounds like stage two is going well, then.” Talon lifted his boots when he felt them sinking, and tried not to grimace at both the sound and the smell that arose from the disturbed wet sand.

“Somewhat, but there have been assaults on the public that have been hard to keep up with. A squad of stormtroopers refused to fire on civilians, and the new Imperial commander lined them up for execution.” Ben pinched the bridge of his nose. “I never thought I would see the day when I would be rescuing stormtroopers.”

Talon couldn’t quite disguise his surprise. “Why not let the execution take place?”

“Because Imperials with a shred of decency are in short supply,” Ben said, but he was looking at Jade as he spoke. “Can I borrow your employee for a few minutes, Karrde? I think we need to have a private conversation.”

“Certainly. I want her back alive and in one piece, please,” Talon said. Jade gave Talon a mutinous glare that could have ignited ’plast, making it clear that she would prefer to do anything else. “Fifty million credits, Mara. Indulge us.”

“Fine,” Jade bit out, and stalked off after Ben.

Talon regarded both retreating figures, intrigued. He knew Ben had never been Imperial-aligned—he suspected he knew exactly who Ben truly was, but if the man didn’t want to be associated with his old name, it was certainly not Karrde’s job to reveal it. There were worse potential allies to have than an ex-Jedi who aided and abetted smugglers. This new information just put a crimp in his ability to discern Jade’s origins, and that was enough fuel to fire his curiosity for the next year.

He had also misjudged Ben’s age by at least a decade or two, but he refused to admit his technique was flawed. Either the man had the best plastic surgeon money could buy, or his genetics were the most fortunate combination a human could wish for. Some days the bastard looked no older than twenty-five.

“Coruscant,” he repeated thoughtfully.

“Boss?” Aves stepped up next to him. “What’s up with those two, and what about Coruscant?”

Talon chose to ignore one question and answer the other. “There was a disturbance on Coruscant about a month ago. An underground explosion took out a significant portion of the old Industrial Zone.”

“Accidental?”

“Hardly.” Talon crossed his arms, tapping his fingers against the hard leather shell of his jacket. He really wanted to know what had been so important that Ben had risked Imperial detection in order to destroy it.

 

*          *          *          *

 

Jade had an intense aura of presence, amplified by the vivid piercing green of her eyes. In the Force, she glowed like a banked fire, potential that had been carefully preserved but not allowed to flourish. That had baffled Obi-Wan for a few seconds until she pulled a blaster on him.

Obi-Wan wasn’t certain if it was anger, stubbornness, curiosity, or all three, but something aside from Karrde’s order had convinced Jade to follow him off the coastline and onto the grassy plain that bordered it.

It wasn’t hard to figure out who _he_ was. Like often recognized like, and there was no doubt that Mara Jade had once belonged to Sidious.

Their hair was the same damned color, though Jade wouldn’t know that, not with the dye wash still in place. He caught himself wondering if that was why Sidious had claimed her, and had to repress a shudder.

Obi-Wan didn’t stop until he judged they were far enough away from prying ears and Karrde’s ubiquitous listening devices. One of the feral Lothcats pranced up to him, rearing up to put its front paws on his leg and demand attention. He scratched its ears while studying Jade, who was eying another one of the approaching cats. The younger kit was pretending to stalk her.

“Who are you?”

Straight to the point, then. “Your boss’s client,” Obi-Wan answered. “Or did you mean something more specific?”

As he’d suspected, the lack of Karrde’s presence removed certain inhibitions. Jade drew her blaster again, leveling it at him while sparks of anger burned in her eyes. “I’ll ask again. Who are you?”

Obi-Wan pulled the blaster from her hand with the Force, a strong yank that sent Jade stumbling forward a few steps before she recovered her balance. She swore at him while he looked the blaster over, a small model of high quality.

“Very nice,” he said, and tossed it back to her.

Jade caught her blaster with one hand and pointed it at the ground. The sparks of anger had become smoldering rage, but her control was incredible. Her voice was clipped but steady when she asked, “What was the Emperor to you?”

“A target,” Obi-Wan said. The flinch he observed was very slight, almost too subtle to notice. “Someone I dearly wanted to kill.”

“That’s not the only thing.”

“How do you know that?” Obi-Wan asked, curious.

“I—I don’t know.” Jade’s left hand was clenched into a white-knuckled fist. “I just know.”

He considered her posture, her anger, and decided to push. “Why did Sidious quash your potential, I wonder? Was it because of his infamous sexism, or was he afraid of what you would become if he allowed you to flourish?”

“What are you talking about?” Jade snapped.

“You are powerful enough to recognize a connection that was severed over twenty years ago,” Obi-Wan said. The Lothcat dropped back down on all fours and trotted away. “You’re very strong in the Force.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Jade protested. The anger was still present, but grief and frustration were joining it. “I was useful to him because I could hear his voice, but with the Emperor dead— _why_ am I telling you this? What the hell are you doing!”

Obi-Wan tilted his head and ignored the outburst. He could do many things, and had yet to do nothing more than speak. She was floundering, but had worked very hard to keep that fact to herself.

_Mara Jade._

Jade took three steps back and glared at him. “Don’t do that,” she ordered, leaving no doubt that she had heard.

“You were one of Sidious’s Hands.”

Jade started, her trigger finger jerking over the guard on the blaster pistol. “Wrong. I was _the_ Emperor’s Hand.”

Obi-Wan stared at her. She believed her words, heart and soul. Jade thought she’d been the only one. Everything about her choked-off potential in the Force suddenly made sense.

_Sidious, you fucking bastard._

“The Emperor wished for me to be his apprentice,” Obi-Wan finally said, before Jade could change her mind about the conversation and start shooting. “I disagreed.”

“Oh.” Jade’s chin came up, and part of her rage was replaced by wary respect. “You’re him. You’re Venge.”

“He talked about me? I’m flattered,” Obi-Wan said in a dry voice.

To his surprise, and intense disquiet, Jade finally holstered her blaster. “He told me that if I ever met you, I should do one of three things, depending on my read of the situation: kill you, convince you to return to the Emperor’s fold, or run.”

“And yet, you’re not running.”

There was a hint of a smirk on Jade’s face, something reminiscent of the Hand she’d once been. “Where would I go?”

“For fuck’s sake, what did he say?” Obi-Wan asked, rather appalled by Jade’s casual acceptance of her potential execution.

“That you were once a Jedi, one who methodically learned the Sith ways in order to kill the Emperor. He said that you were not the first Jedi to try that approach, but you were the one he believed could succeed. He thought you were a superior student to Vader.” Jade all but spat Vader’s name. Hatred flared, turning her anger into bitter chill.

“That is…unfortunately true,” Obi-Wan admitted, “but Vader was also a broken man. That’s like comparing a Falleen vase to a pedestrian drinking glass with the bottom half broken off.”

Jade snorted. “The way the Emperor spoke of you, I think that would have been true even if what you say about Vader was correct.”

Ah; now he understood. “You already knew that Vader killed the Emperor, even before the Alliance made a point of announcing it.”

“Vader and that damned pet Jedi of theirs,” Jade hissed in fury. “Skywalker.”

Obi-Wan shook his head, puzzled by the addition. “No. Just Vader.”

Jade’s glower intensified to something that could melt holes through duracrete. “You’re lying.”

“Of all the things to lie about, you believe I would choose that one?” he asked, amused. “I witnessed the Emperor’s death, Jade. Vader acted alone, though he almost left it too late. I would have been very, very cross if he’d let my nephew die.”

“Nephew,” Jade repeated in disbelief.

“Well, by marriage. The man Vader used to be is my step-brother.”

A complex progression of emotions flittered across her face: anger, distress…betrayal? He didn’t understand that one until she spoke.

“Revenge,” Jade whispered. “It was never about Skywalker. It was always vengeance against Vader.”

That finally gave him enough information to figure out the other problem he’d sensed. “You’re under a Force compulsion.”

“Is that what it is,” Jade said. It wasn’t a question. She looked as if Obi-Wan had just shattered her entire worldview. He watched closely; his sympathy depended on what she decided to do next.

Dammit, he really hoped he wasn’t going to bring a body back to Karrde. He didn’t think the smuggler would take it well.

“It’s very strong,” Obi-Wan told her. “I imagine it’s like having the Emperor scream in your face.”

Jade nodded, a slow, contemplative motion. “He wanted me to kill Skywalker.”

“Well, I’m not letting you kill my nephew. You’re better than that,” he added, after a moment’s thought. She’d had over a year to kill Luke, and he suspected that Jade had not once actually tried to fulfill the bidding of the compulsion. Jade was a Hand; the Empire’s upheaval wouldn’t have stopped her if it was something she truly wanted to accomplish.

“Am I?”

“Yes.” There was no further argument to be made; right now the strength of her decision was based upon what she had lost with the Emperor’s death…and what she had gained.

“Tell me how to get rid of the nightmares.” Jade’s voice was quiet. “Tell me why I can only use the Force when I dream of him.”

Obi-Wan exhaled, realizing only then that he’d been holding his breath. “Well, then. Let’s go let Karrde know he needs to hang around for a bit. This could take a while.”

 

*          *          *          *

 

Obi-Wan still had the stolen contents of Sidious’s library on board the _Figment_ , stored in haphazard piles in the second sleeping room. He refused to hole up in the tiny room, instead working at his transcription efforts in the main hold off the galley. More often than not there was a steaming mug of very bad caff at his side.

Gods, he missed tea. Damn that blockade, and drat his inability to remember to add it to his smuggler-provided shopping list.

Obi-Wan blinked a few times and then pushed his current document aside. Blood magic. Wonderful. He found it in the most ridiculous of places, sometimes.

He didn’t want to do this at all, but the idea of leaving Luke’s potential Jedi Order completely unprepared for the threat of the Sith was not to be borne. They had been thought extinct once, and that had proven false. Obi-Wan was taking no chances; he’d literally fucking _died_ to keep the Order preserved. He would not see it falter again due to ignorance. Not here.

Today was the second anniversary of his arrival on Lothal, and Obi-Wan had heard nothing of Anakin in all that time. The subtle feelers Karrde had put out for him had returned no results, and he sensed nothing in the Force…not that he would. If Anakin had figured out where they were, as Obi-Wan had, he would be tightly shielded against recognition. Neither of them were supposed to be alive at the moment, and Luke was not the only person out in the galaxy that might be tempted to hunt down those new, strange, and powerful Force signatures.

On a private, individual level, it didn’t hurt for certain people to know that Obi-Wan was alive. On a historical level, it could be a complete disaster if his survival became public knowledge. It opened too many avenues of speculation. People would wonder about Vader’s betrayal of the Empire…and question the truth of the Emperor’s death. The Empire was already gnashing its teeth in its attempt to preserve itself. Rumors of the Emperor’s survival would make things more difficult for the Alliance, and they had enough problems due to Isard’s perseverance.

Obi-Wan shook his head and pulled the crumbling sheet of paper back into his line of sight. Detangling ancient Dark idiocy was a welcome respite from the circling churn of his own thoughts.

“Wondering, I am: What you are doing?”

Obi-Wan rubbed the bridge of his nose in irritation. “Writing things down. What does it look like?”

“Hmph,” his visitor said, disgruntled.

Obi-Wan finally looked up and stared at the Force ghost. He’d rarely seen Yoda without his gimer stick, and he had definitely never seen Yoda appear as young as he did now.

Not that it changed anything. “I am still fucking pissed at you, by the way.”

Yoda’s glowing blue ear twitched in dismissal. “Necessary, it was.”

“I’m aware,” Obi-Wan replied. His voice was soft and even, but he was all but snapping his stylus in half. He forced his hand to relax; he only had a single spare. “That doesn’t mean I can’t have an emotional response to being stuffed in a damned box.”

Yoda’s eyes narrowed. “Venge, you are _not._ ”

Obi-Wan knew without looking that there was gold in his eyes, overriding the washed-out silver. “Stupid, _you_ are not.”

He knew ghosts could sulk because of his years spent with Qui-Gon in the desert of Tatooine. Yoda, however, could sulk like a professional. It was sort of endearing.

Obi-Wan took pity on him. “Weren’t you supposed to be napping?”

Yoda huffed out a sigh. “When two very loud Jedi Masters tear holes in the Force, sleep I cannot.”

“That was not our fault,” Obi-Wan murmured, quietly pleased that Yoda had just referred to Anakin as a Jedi Master. He wondered if Yoda was even aware of the other Master’s identity.

Yoda’s ears lowered. “No. Knew, I did, that see you again here I would not, and yet, you are here.”

“He told you.” That was even more surprising than Yoda’s sudden appearance.

“Agreed, I did not,” Yoda pointed out, shaking his fist as if he still held his gimer stick. “But…but wanted you to be happy, I did.” Yoda’s expression saddened. “What happened, dear Padawan?”

The stylus broke with a loud _snap_. Obi-Wan looked down at it in regret. At this point he was going to have to break into the old governing complex in the capital just to steal another box of styluses.

“It’s a long story,” he said at last. “Help me filter through this ridiculous nonsense, and I’ll tell you about it.”

Yoda agreed with a nod, disappearing and reappearing to stand on Obi-Wan’s table. He stared down at the document in question, then gave Obi-Wan a wide-eyed look. “A political schedule, this is.”

“It is, yes.”

“A blood-binding spell, attached to a political schedule, this is.”

“Yes.” Obi-Wan pointed at the date with one half of the broken stylus. “It’s six hundred years old, too.”

Yoda snorted. “Recording this why, are you?”

Obi-Wan tapped the dominant name on the list. “Because that’s a Sith Lord of Bane’s line, petitioning for more Senate oversight of the Jedi Order.”

 

*          *          *          *

 

Yoda never asked, but Obi-Wan knew that the ancient troll desperately wanted to know what had changed to make Venge more or less sane. Less on some days than others, but the Imperials kept volunteering to eat his fits of temper, so it balanced out nicely.

Obi-Wan put it off until Yoda looked ready to tear out his hair. Then he unsnapped the leather brace on his left arm and showed him his trader’s sleeve.

Yoda tilted his head, considering the text of Obi-Wan’s bonding vows.

Then he cackled for five minutes straight.

Obi-Wan scowled and called Yoda vile names under his breath. Now there was a decision that came bottled with immediate regret.

After Yoda managed to stop laughing (and giggling) he reappeared with a newly sober expression. “Seen Qui-Gon, I have not, since the death of the Emperor. Where is he?”

Obi-Wan clenched both hands into fists, his shoulders taut and burning. His breath came out as a plume of mist; he looked down to find that ice patterns had formed, spreading outwards from his hands.

Yoda ignored both temperature and ice to give Obi-Wan an almost-tangible pat on the arm. “All right, it is.”

Obi-Wan swallowed and pulled the ice back. He hadn’t done that since Fire, and he didn’t like the emotional void the ice came from. “I know where he _should_ be,” he said, thinking of Qui-Gon’s accidental incorporation of Lifebond potential with the anchor point. “But I…the Lifebond feels the way I always read it would feel if one member of the bond died.”

“Separate you are, but dead he is not,” Yoda replied, sounding certain.

“Oh, that’s most likely true, but I’m over here with a bond that doesn’t even _echo._ ” Obi-Wan drew in a calming breath. “Some days it bothers me a hell of a lot more than others.”

 

*          *          *          *

 

Mara tried not to, but she thought about Venge often in the weeks following her first blockade run. She was far too professional to let it affect her duties, but during lulls between shipments or quiet evenings in her quarters, she would see his face, or hear his words in her mind. It wasn’t a Force compulsion—she knew the difference, now—but she could not shake the proto-Sith from her thoughts.

_I am going to tell you something that you don’t want to hear._

_Try me,_ Mara had said, unable to keep the words from being a challenge. The disturbing addition of mindspeech to their conversation unnerved her, but she did not frighten easily. Those who believed otherwise usually ended up dead.

_You had the potential to be Sidious’s Apprentice, not a mere Hand._

_Don’t be an absurd,_ Mara spat, and that had been the only thing Venge had said of the matter.

Rest day arrived, which meant a boisterous night of cards and drinking among Karrde’s people. She didn’t partake of either, choosing to sit quietly off to one side and observe. She had discerned more about Karrde’s employees that way than they might be comfortable with, but she refused to remain uneducated. Her life had long depended on knowing what to expect from the people around her. She’d averted three assassinations that way, one of which had been Ysanne Isard’s second attempt to kill her during the political fallout from the Emperor’s death. That was the moment that had taught her it was time to go to ground, to become unrecognizable. She ignored established habits and old contacts, refused to reveal the extent of her weapons knowledge. She could strip an engine with the best of them, hide among the greasemonkeys. Mara had made an art of disguising the fact that she’d ever known the joys of Imperial Center at all.

Mara leaned back in her seat, trying for a more comfortable position, and realized that Karrde was watching her. She felt the icy trickle of unease down her spine. There was no predatory look to that gaze, nothing overtly sexual. Karrde was dangerous in a different fashion; he had been studying her the way she had just been studying everyone else.

Talon Karrde was an intelligent man, one with some very strict ideas about how to run a successful business. Those standards worked well. He’d managed to claim a stronger powerbase than Jabba, in a much shorter amount of time, and Karrde had done it all without terrorizing his employees or his customers. His morals were not ridiculously white, or Hut-levels of vile, but he didn’t quite sit in the middle of the spectrum, either. Karrde’s principles shoved him well out of true neutral and more towards meritorious, though Karrde would possibly threaten to shoot anyone who accused him of that sort of morality set.

Karrde inspired loyalty at a level close to the Emperor himself. Mara wanted to see the day when the truth was revealed, to discover the coward at the smuggler’s core—or perhaps she wanted to be proven wrong, to find that Talon Karrde was exactly what he professed to be.

Jade stole one of Fynn’s glasses, which had a single swallow of wine remaining, and raised the glass in Karrde’s direction. Karrde offered a faint smile and a return of the salute, before turning his attention back to a game of dejarik that was about to turn bloody.

Mara thought that they must have just come to some sort of agreement, but she had no idea what kind. Either a new position, a new job, a new responsibility—Mara had no idea, but Karrde would tell her eventually.

In the meantime, Mara was gnashing her teeth every time she realized that Tanno’baijii had left her to come to her own conclusions about the Emperor, about the Empire, and about herself. She did not like what she saw, or the truths she recognized, but these were _her_ discoveries. No one else’s.

With her thoughts clear, and no commands ringing in her ears or interrupting her sleep, Mara had started to wonder: What was the point? What had been the Emperor’s intent? Did he not remember that all her Master would have had to do was ask, and Mara would have seen it done or die trying? Instead, the Emperor had left her with an inescapable command, one that could not be easily fulfilled. Tanno’baijii had removed the compulsion from her mind the minute she’d truly understood what the Emperor had done. If she had not met Tanno’baijii, he who carried a Sith within himself, it would never have ended.

She walked out of the noisy room and felt cool silence descend like a delicate, soothing blanket. The perfume in the air was a lovely counter for too much tabacc smoke and alcohol.

The quiet, the change of scenery—neither helped her to escape the most bitter of conclusions. The Emperor had enslaved her with his last breath, a mission based upon a lie. He would have known how difficult it would be.

He would have known that the compulsion would torture her, possibly to the brink of madness.

The desire to see Venge prove his claim was also eating at her. She’d witnessed Vader’s servitude, and Mara did not want that. She didn’t want to be a Jedi—she had a severe distaste for their holier-than-thou attitude, reflected in a few of the items on display on Imperial Center, along with video fragments that showed the traitors at their most aloof.

 _Tanno’baijii doesn’t act that way_ , she reminded herself, and then frowned. That was all well and good, but she still had no idea how to go about forcing Tanno’baijii to reveal this supposed potential of hers.

It wasn’t much of a surprise when Karrde called her into his office a week later. Mara looked forward to finally discovering what it was she had tacitly agreed to.

Karrde was sitting on the edge of his desk, a half-full tumbler of brandy in his hand. “I’m assigning you to be my direct liaison with Tanno’baijii on Lothal,” Karrde said. He gazed down at his drink, contemplating the liquid’s golden swirl. “That’s the official line, anyway. Feel free to think of it as a protective detail.”

“You do not often assign bodyguards to your other customers,” Mara said, after considering both his words and his posture. He was looking for a specific response, but she didn’t yet know what kind.

“Very few of my customers would entrust me with two hundred million-odd credits,” Karrde replied dryly. “It changes the nature of the investment.”

“You could send me to kill him and just keep the money,” Mara pointed out in a neutral voice.

Karrde’s eyes narrowed until the blue of his irises glittered like points of ice. “That isn’t how I do business. That’s how Jabba ran things, and it’s a large part of the reason why he’s dead.”

“All right, then,” Mara said, resisting the urge to lace her hands behind her back. “For how long?”

“However long the contract lasts,” Karrde said, slugging back half of the brandy in one swallow. “A few more months, perhaps. Maybe a year. I suppose it depends on what Tanno’baijii plans to do with himself after Lothal’s liberation.”

“And you think he’s going to succeed.” When Karrde didn’t answer, she went on. “Tanno’baijii is a Jedi, or at least he used to be. I seem to recall that smugglers and Jedi didn’t get along very well.”

Karrde smiled. “If it were anyone else, perhaps I would be concerned about our organization—I still don’t know what the Alliance Jedi’s policy is going to be on smugglers, after all.” He emptied his glass. “Did you ever hear about the Corellian Blockade?”

Mara’s lips twitched as she hid a smile. “Which one?”

“The longest-lasting one,” Karrde said. “The two-year cooperative block between the Empire and CorSec Authority that kept all smugglers out of the system.”

“I remember. One of Jabba’s people broke it.”

“No. Jabba had to bribe someone into doing it,” Karrde said, and looked highly amused. “That’s how I met Tanno’baijii.”

“People that Jabba could bribe either wound up in his employ permanently, or wound up dead,” Mara said in a flat voice, though she was busy filing that information away. Sidious had never mentioned that his desired Apprentice was a pilot, let alone a skilled one.

“Believe me, I remember. I got the story from Helem, when he jumped ship to our people. Tanno’baijii went back to Tatooine and threatened to drop Jabba to his death if the Hutt ever bothered him again.”

 _Venge,_ Mara thought, and a hint of her smile escaped her control. “When do you want me to go?”

“The next supply run is due in two weeks. Head out with them. Aves has the helm for it, but you have override authority from me if anything happens to threaten Tanno’baijii’s safety while the crew is still on-site.”

“And afterwards?” Mara asked. “You _are_ asking me to safeguard a man who is waging a guerilla war, after all.”

Karrde gave her a sharp, penetrating glare. She didn’t react; it was no comparison to being subjected to the Emperor’s gaze. “You’re good at your job. I trust there won’t be any problems.”

 

*          *          *          *

 

Mara Jade was due to report in to Ben Tanno’baijii after the offloading was done. She snuck a peak at the content lists; the rifles were a nice touch, as were the power cells that were pretty close to being universal replacements for most modern weapons. The second batch of vaccines concerned her.

“Oh, we’ve got another damned breakout of influenza,” the young woman who’d met them said, after informing them that Tanno’baijii was busy. She introduced herself as Grey Greene.

Honestly, the things some parents would do to their own children.

“How bad is it?” Mara asked, giving a floating pallet a kick when it wandered too far out of the retrieval line.

“Not nearly as bad as it was two years ago,” Grey said, signing off on the confirmation slip that Aves offered her. “A bout of Shipman’s Flu would have wiped out half the continent. Now we just have to double down on vaccinations for the young, old, and the sick. Gods willing, we won’t see any new deaths.”

Mara felt her stomach twist in nerves. Half the continent. Those were terrible death rates from a mere flu.

Karrde had showed her the contract before sending her out. Stage one’s supplies had been the basics of living, purchased in mind-boggling quantities. That had implied terrible things about Lothal’s economy, not to mention the planet’s overall health.

Aves tossed her the bag she’d left on the edge of the boarding ramp. “There ya go, Jade. Take care. Boss said not to risk a radio transmission unless it’s one hell of an emergency, so we’ll catch up on the next run.”

“Thanks,” Mara replied, amazed that the blond idiot had managed to maintain proper civility from start to finish. “See you soon.”

Aves waved and disappeared into the ship. Chin was just behind him, and offered Jade a salute that had only a touch of playfulness in it.

“Oooh-kay, this wasn’t on my schedule,” Grey said, giving Mara a narrow-eyed, suspicious look.

“My employer has placed me as an on-the-ground liaison for Tanno’baijii,” Mara said in a smooth voice. “If you could take me to him?”

“Oh, boy.” Grey sighed. “Right. Give me your gun.”

Mara drew back. “Over my dead body.”

“And that’s exactly what it’s going to be,” Grey retorted. “You give me that gun until Ben vets that you’re on the up-and-up, or you can die here. My brother Black is on sniper duty. He doesn’t miss.”

Mara glanced down, noticing too late the green laser dot on her breast, just over her heart. She looked up and tracked the laser line; there was a man resting on the ruined ceiling of a half-destroyed building. He waved when he saw her, but the target never wavered.

“Fine.” Mara handed over her favorite hold-out blaster she kept in its sleeve holster, then the larger weapon at her hip.

“The knife, too, honey,” Grey said, unimpressed. “Both of them.”

Damn it. Mara gritted her teeth and pulled the knife from the back of her belt, and then the one from her boot.

“Don’t worry, we like knives. You’ll get everything back in decent condition.” Grey smiled before turning around. “Follow me. We’re going down.”

“Down where?”

Grey snickered and skirted a rock. Mara stepped around it and almost stopped as the gaping hole in the ground revealed itself.

“You were not kidding.”

“Nope.” Grey signaled her brother, who started to pack up the rifle. “Go on down. All you have to do is follow the floating pallets bearing the new supplies. They’re heading straight for Central, and we’ll be right behind you.”

Once inside the tunnel, it was pitch dark until her eyes adjusted to the light. The passage was wide and clean, but Mara could look up and see that the tunnel was a recent build. The ceiling support rafters were cobbled together from signs, duracrete beams, flag poles, a door—one enterprising soul had repurposed a bathtub at some point. The old steel was keeping a great deal of heavy boulders from collapsing the tunnel.

Central was brightly lit relief after what had to be at least two kliks of darkness. The new supplies were being effectively sorted by a small, mixed-species crowd, who sent each package off on a new path depending on its contents.

“I didn’t know Lothal had this kind of underground system,” Mara said.

“We didn’t.” Black and Grey had caught up, as promised. Black was the one who’d spoken; despite the rifle, he seemed far less suspicious than his sister. “Ben carved them out with the Force. We needed a secure place to hole up, as well as a network to make it easier to get around without being seen.”

“Then he slept for a week,” Grey said with a wry smile. “Everyone was on babysitting duty until Ben finally crawled out of bed and yelled at us to fuck off.”

“Charming,” Mara commented, and allowed the siblings to lead her beyond the noisy bustle of Central, following first one tunnel and then another to the barracks.

“Well, we say barracks, but a lot of the families live here, too,” Black was explaining, while Mara let her eyes flicker from one individual to the next. There were indeed families, some of them with new, squalling infants. Others were keeping track of ambitious toddlers, who were trying to shove their fingers into everything they could find.

“Why?”

“Well, this may be a military operation, but the entire planet is our home. When the Imps can’t find the military, they go after the civilians,” Grey said in a bitter voice. “Lost our parents that way, and that was before Ben even showed up.”

Black pointed. “There are two more tunnels that way, dedicated to the families who’ve moved in with us to keep their younglings safe.”

Tanno’baijii was talking to another group of kids—fresh-faced adults, really. “We need to randomize these raids a hell of a lot more. The last ten times you lot have gone out, there’s been a noticeable pattern. If I’m noticing that pattern, so are the Imps. Keep this up, and the next time you stick your head out of those holes in the ground, someone’s going to be waiting to shoot it off.”

There were smiles in response to that, but it was the grim humor of war veterans. “Should we put it on a randomizer, then?” one of the kids asked. The Rodian was stroking the stock of her rifle like it was a pet.

Tanno’baijii rubbed his jaw as he considered the idea. “I think we should go one step further. Take a crew out on bikes, strike an Imperial encampment that’s close to another tunnel entrance, and then disappear using a third. Just remember: They don’t know where these tunnels are yet, and we have to bloody well keep it that way. Don’t lead them right down on top of us. If you’ve still got tails, get rid of them before coming home.”

“Yes, sir,” one of the women said, holstering her rifle.

Tanno’baijii made a face. “For fuck’s sake, kids. ‘Sir’ is fine if we’re in the field, but down here, I damned well have a name.”

Grey snickered. “Sir, we’ve spread rumors of _six_ different names for you. Do you have a preference?”

“You’re all diabolical little shits,” Tanno’baijii retorted, but his eyes were alight with humor. “Go have fun. Keep the casualties light if you can. If you find stragglers, give them a hand. Be back before breakfast.”

“Yes, Dad,” half of the group of adults chorused.

“That one is _not_ on the list!”

“Okay, okay, fine,” the Rodian said, venting a dramatic sigh. “Tanno’baijii. That one confuses the Imps because they haven’t figured out how to spell it yet.”

“Right. Off with you,” Tanno’baijii said, and made shooing motions with his hands. Then he turned his attention to Mara, Black, and Grey. The latter were waiting patiently; the former was coming up with the deaths that Karrde would suffer at her hands if she had to fight her way out of a tunnel filled with crazy Rebels.

“Mara Jade,” Tanno’baijii said. “I can honestly say I didn’t expect to see you again.”

“Blame Karrde,” Mara replied tersely. “He thinks you need a liaison on the ground to safeguard the value of your contract.”

“Did he.” Tanno’baijii seemed thoughtful. “That’s interesting. Have you showed Jade to a berth, yet?”

“Well, no—” Grey began to say, but Mara cut her off.

“Tanno’baijii, in plainer terms: Karrde sent me to make sure you didn’t die. That means a closer berth than somewhere halfway across the base.” She did not sigh. She was going to make the best of being trapped underground with people she still viewed as traitors to the Empire.

“Ah.” Tanno’baijii leaned against the holographic table, powered down now that his charges had gone off to commit mayhem. “There’s not a lot of room, and that row is full. There’s space for another cot in my berth, but I’ve been accused of snoring.”

Jade’s eyebrows rose. “I’m sure we can…make other arrangements.”

“If it’s your virtue you’re concerned with, you needn’t be, unless you have a cock.”

Mara knew she was not making the most diplomatic of faces. “You prefer…men.”

Tanno’baijii crossed his arms, eyes flashing in complete irritation. “Right, you were Core-raised during the rise in popularity of the Empire’s rampant homophobia. Launch that mindset into orbit, please. It is not useful here.”

Black grunted his agreement. “You’re Outer Rim, now, and that Bantha shit didn’t really make it out this far.”

“Get over yourself, Jade,” Grey said, but even that was spoken in a kind voice. “Or we could just shoot her and bury the body. My girlfriend gets that shit enough from the local troops. She doesn’t need to hear it from someone who’s playing at being an ally.”

Mara had no idea what to say to any of that. It was the second time in less than a year that she’d walked into an utterly different world. She’d grown up under the Identification and Prevention of Deviant Sexual Activities laws and the infamously long associated prison times. She’d been eighteen years old and running a mission out on the Rim before so much as seeing two men hold hands. Even Karrde’s people didn’t openly discuss such things.

“Jade.” She looked at Tanno’baijii, who was treating her to a frank, level stare. “The Emperor, the same man who helped create the I.P.D.S.A.—he liked men. Exclusively.”

“How do _you_ know that?” Mara demanded, lashing out at the man who’d haunted her days and nights for weeks on end.

Tanno’baijii just kept staring at her.

“Oh.” Mara felt small, a sensation she hated, but in this case she’d certainly jumped right into it. “I see.” She swallowed; she had just lost a number of points in the eyes of people she suspected were Tanno’baijii’s top lieutenants. “A cot in your quarters will be acceptable.”

“Great!” Tanno’baijii smiled and pushed off from the console, shoving his hands into his pockets. “I’ll show you around. Grey, please take care of bunk acquisition? I have no damned idea where Housing stashed them after the last shuffle.”

“On it,” Grey said, but she gave Mara one last suspicious look before heading off with Black.

The tour of the rest of the underground facility was undramatic, and fairly simple. Every new section was labeled with its purpose; maps were posted on the front of each tunnel junction that showed both immediate areas and instructions on how to find the closest exit. Everything was represented by ideograms, not Aurebesh.

“Not everyone can speak Basic, or read Aurebesh,” Tanno’baijii said, talking her on a slow walk through the armory. Mara was impressed, and said so. It had been a long time since she’d seen that kind of stockpiled weaponry.

No damned wonder Karrde wanted this man alive. He had deep pockets, and Karrde specialized in these sorts of acquisitions.

“Grab something you favor,” Tanno’baijii said, taking a high-powered rifle with a scope off of the opposite wall, one that held only a few other mounted, personalized weapons.

“I favor getting my own things back,” Mara muttered.

“Grey will have left them on your bunk when we return,” Tanno’baijii promised. “In the meantime?”

Mara frowned, but selected a standard Imperial-made blaster rifle, adding a small holstered sidearm. “Where are we going?”

“Up, and out. The most important tour happens outside.”

They took two speederbikes on the trip, flooring them out of the tunnel once Tanno’baijii had judged it clear of Imperial watchers. Mara dared a quick glance behind her to see the tunnel mouth disappearing, hidden by…actually, she couldn’t tell what had hidden it. She doubted she would even _find_ the damned thing again without Tanno’baijii’s assistance.

They were in one of the farming regions, but Mara didn’t see crops anywhere. There were just kliks and kliks of dead plants, or stark, empty fields. The farmhouse they passed had no life within it. It was the same for the next farm, and the next, and the next. Only the last farm had life to it, with fields full of tall, green plants.

“Lothal’s own special brand of tabacc,” Tanno’baijii pointed out, resting his arms across the bike’s handlebars as they hovered in neutral. “Not only is it one of the few plants left that will grow in tainted soil, it filters poisons as it matures. The plant is non-toxic at harvest, and it leaves the ground in better condition, too.”

“What’s the point of this?” Mara asked. “I don’t smoke, Tanno’baijii.”

“You can’t eat tabacc, either, but at least it’s a cash crop.” Tanno’baijii put his hands back on the bike’s controls. “It’s one of the things we protect. It might give Lothal the means for economic recovery after this war is over.”

He took her to Capital City, a ludicrous name for a city that was both major port and planetary capital. The smell struck her nostrils immediately, but Tanno’baijii led her away from it in mercifully short time. The streets were dirty, filthy—no homeless population, though.

 _Of course there is a homeless population,_ Mara thought, eyes narrowing in realization. _They’ve just been moved into the tunnels._

Tanno’baijii led them close enough for Mara to catch a glimpse of the old Academy, now nothing more than a refurbished garrison. It was the only structure in the city that had both working lights and clean walls.

Then he took her to a small town about fifteen kilometers north of Capital City, and slowed the bike until they were drifting to a stop right in the village center.

The earth was burnt an awful, crystalized black. Everything stank of smoke and char, and there was a disconcerting sickly-sweet underneath the char that suggested dead bodies. The homes were nothing more than splintered shells. Shattered belongings were littered everywhere, spread out by the explosion.

“What the hell is this, Tanno’baijii?”

“Used to be Fair Winds,” he said, releasing his brakes and letting the bike’s slow drift continue. “They were civilians. We kept no supplies here, no munitions. We weren’t willing to give the Empire even the slightest reason to hurt these people. Those living here knew the rules; if they had family in the rebellion, they would publicly disown them. Always before, it kept them from facing retaliation.”

“What did they do?” Mara asked.

Tanno’baijii glanced at her. “Nothing. They did nothing more than live here, trying to continue their lives. Then we got a new Imperial ground forces commander, about a week before we first met. Most new arrivals take the time to listen to subordinate officers, learn the lay of the land. Colonel Druhl declared that he knew exactly how to deal with a rebellion, and he would show his men how to end this war.”

“Was Druhl the one who lined up those stormtroopers for execution, the ones who wouldn’t fire on civilians?” Mara asked. She had a feeling she knew where this was going.

“When the first group balked, Druhl lost his patience. I heard from one of the rescued troopers that Druhl said, ‘Grand Moff Tarkin knew how to win wars, and I’m going to show you exactly what he meant.’” Tanno’baijii sighed. “Aerial bombardment from an SD in high orbit. All it took was three hits. No survivors.”

“It’s war,” Mara said, after a long, intense quiet. “If the colonel wanted information, all these people had to do was supply it. If they refused, then they deserved it.”

“Did they?” Tanno’baijii countered, but gunned the bike and took off without waiting for a response.

 _Yes,_ Mara thought, as led her back to that hidden tunnel. _There are many casualties in war, on both sides. I’ve known that since I was fourteen years old, Venge._

Sometimes sacrifice was the only path to peace.

Tanno’baijii didn’t say anything else about Druhl, or Fair Winds. He _showed_ her, instead, which was supremely irritating and made her want to suffocate him in his sleep. Tanno’baijii introduced her to children who had only recently been starving to death, and still looked as if they were going to expire at any moment. She met older men and women who had lost children, siblings, and cousins, widows who had watched spouses die during Tarkin’s initial attempts to purge the first group of Rebels from Lothal.

Mara walked through fields of dead grass, sticks cracking and breaking beneath her feet, where nothing had grown for ten years because of aerial bombardment and pollution. She touched one of the healthy tabacc plants, wondering at its vitality when so much else was dust.

“Too bad we can’t eat it. It would’ve helped,” the farmer said, before he used a sharp blade to slice the plant down at ground level. “It is an appetite suppressant, though. It was nice not to want to think about food as much, but even a suppressant only goes so far.”

“Right,” Mara said, and got back aboard her speeder and fled the moment Tanno’baijii and Grey were ready to depart.

The worst part was that Tanno’baijii wasn’t doing it deliberately. She was only following the man as he went about his day, and his day revolved around talking to people, planning and plotting skirmishes and acts of resistance. It was about setting up the networks that rotated by the week, keeping the Imperials from disrupting the supply lines that kept the people in food and medicine, goods that the Imperials would steal and destroy if given half an opportunity.

“They disobeyed the Empire!” Mara whispered in furious protest, continuing a conversation that they were not even _having_.

Tanno’baijii just shrugged. “I didn’t realize that disobedience should always mean death.”

“It didn’t,” Mara hissed, “and it shouldn’t, but sacrifices must be made so that others learn to live by Imperial example.”

“Now you sound like Tarkin,” he commented without looking up from his datapad.

Mara snapped her jaw shut, stung. She’d _hated_ Tarkin. He had been a cold, calculating bastard of a man who’d only ever viewed Mara as either a bauble or an insect, one whose value depended only upon the Emperor’s indulgence. He had not once looked at her as someone skilled in her own right, even after he’d learned of her true identity.

“You should know exactly what the price of disobedience is, Jedi.”

Tanno’baijii glanced up from his work. “Oh, I do. It makes me wish we’d actually tried to assassinate the Emperor _before_ Order Sixty-Six, not afterwards.”

“I’ve seen the recordings from the Emperor’s office that day,” Mara retorted. “That was not an arrest, it was an attempt at assassination.”

Something in his eyes went cold, a shift that changed his entire posture. Mara almost flinched back from him when she had not from Karrde. She’d called him Venge before, but for the first time, she was _seeing_ him.

“If the Order had really wanted Palpatine dead before Sixty-Six, they wouldn’t have sent one-quarter of the Council. They would have sent me, instead,” Venge said, and then bent his head and deliberately ignored her for the rest of the evening.

“Why you?” Mara asked in the morning, when she was reasonably certain she would get an answer instead of silence.

He didn’t pretend to misunderstand what she was asking about. “I had developed the bad habit of surviving things that should realistically have made me very dead. It was recognized that I could be ruthless, and yet still resist turning to the Dark side of the Force to accomplish my goals. Then there was Rako Hardeen.”

“Who was that?”

“He was a bounty hunter, a subpar one,” Tanno’baijii said. “His ineptitude was why the Order hired him to assassinate a Jedi—namely, me.”

Mara gave him an arch look. “Your Order doesn’t seem to have liked you very much.”

Tanno’baijii smiled. “Some days, I did wonder. It was a setup; he was just the right species and physical size, with the right skillset, for me to replace him. The Confederacy had put together a plan to assassinate the Chancellor. We knew how, but not when, so the plan was to infiltrate the ranks, get chosen to be part of the team to kill Palpatine, and then be in the right place to make sure it didn’t happen.

“It was all lies, of course. Dooku and Palpatine were working together from the start.”

“Dooku?” Mara’s lips twisted in distaste. “He was a figurehead for the Confederacy, the genteel face the CIS put on their military.”

“He was also Sidious’s Apprentice, and Vader’s predecessor,” Tanno’baijii said.

Mara stared at him. “You’re lying.”

“That fucking bastard was my grandmaster. I do not lie when it comes to Dooku of Serenno.”

Mara had to get up and walk away, or else she was going to give into the urge to shout at him. She had heard the tales all her life, of how the Emperor had held together the failing Republic. How he had converted it to an Empire for the people’s safeguarding, destroyed the traitorous Jedi, ended the war.

If Dooku had been his Apprentice…

Mara felt a cold knot of fury in the pit of her stomach. Either Venge was lying, or the Emperor had been, and her instincts were screaming that it wasn’t Venge.

Then she met Silver Greene, Grey and Black’s mysterious sister. She sat down in front of Mara in the makeshift mess hall, putting a steaming cup of watery instant caff on the table.

“Would you like one?” Silver asked, perfect in her mannerism, tone, and offer of hospitality.

“No, thank you,” Mara said, taking care to offer the same courtesy. She could tell that Silver had once been that rare human female creature that is naturally beautiful, the sort of fortunate genetic configuration that often led to modeling contracts and acting positions in rich Core Worlds. Her skin was the color of dusk, and her remaining eye was a deep, clear blue, surrounded by thick lashes. She had a proud nose, and her lips denoted a wide, generous smile until you reached the left side of her face. There, something had gone wrong—acid or battle damage had torn away much of the structure of her face on that side, leaving nothing but scar tissue behind.

“Aren’t you going to ask me about my face?” Silver asked, curious, as Mara made a point of doing nothing more than continuing her meal. “Everyone else does.”

“I was raised to find it impolite,” Mara replied. “Offering to tell me is one thing, but demanding the entire sordid story when I’ve known you for about forty seconds is extremely rude.”

“But you _are_ curious,” Silver pressed. She had to perform a careful ballet with her hands and lips, tilting the cup precisely to make sure the caff went into her mouth.

“Anyone would be,” Mara agreed. “Your safety’s off, by the way.”

“Oh, buggering damnation,” Silver muttered, snapping the safety on before she slung the rifle off of her shoulder and laid it on the bench. “I can always remember to keep my finger off the trigger, but not to use the damned safety. Our first rifle didn’t have one, you see.” She took another careful sip of her drink. “It was some ancient model of slugthrower. It worked well enough, but the only safety rested in keeping your finger off the blasted trigger.”

“My very first blaster pistol was a gift, an old model. It had no safety, either,” Mara said. Silver was fishing for information—everyone had been, subtly or blatantly, for the past week. Despite the fishing, Mara thought she might actually like Silver’s company, which was enough to make her nervous. She rarely liked anyone at all, and never at first meeting.

 _How much of that is training, and how much of that was the Emperor’s control?_ she found herself wondering, and then promptly banished the thought.

“Training purposes?” Silver guessed.

Mara nodded. “Keep your finger off the trigger until you are ready to point the weapon and kill what you’re aiming at. Anything else was unacceptable. I learned fast.”

“I almost shot a Lothcat on accident once.” Silver laughed, and it was a rich, warm sound. “I felt terrible! They’re feral little nuisances, but I didn’t want one to die because I panicked.”

Mara frowned, thinking about it. “I nearly shot a courtier, if I recall correctly. He decided it was amusing to sneak up on an armed eight-year-old.” She laid down her fork. “I actually did shoot him the year afterwards. He cornered me in the garden again.”

Silver managed to relay a grimace of sympathy. “That’s never a good situation to find yourself in. We’ve had such a terrible problem with Imperial soldiers raping our girls and boys.”

“They did _what?_ ” Mara kept her voice quiet, but her fury still bled through.

“It’s war.” There was resigned sadness glimmering in Silver’s eye. “It happens.”

Mara felt a terrible jolt as her flippant words to Venge came back to haunt her. “It’s just that—do you know anything about the rules and honor code that Imperial officers are supposed to obey?”

“They’re not to be raping, I suppose,” Silver guessed. When she smiled, it pulled at the scars on the ruined side of her face.

“You used to be Imperial. I can tell,” she continued, when Mara opened her mouth to protest. “It’s all right. I’ve seen it a few times. The boys who joined us after Fair Winds burned weren’t the first Imperials who’ve defected to our side over the years. They’re always so damned frustrated when they realize that they’ve followed their codes and rules, and yet all of it means nothing when your ranking officer tells you to march in and slaughter a village full of unarmed children and their doting grandparents. For those who were so very loyal, who believed in what the Empire promised, it’s the most painful betrayal.”

Mara swallowed, alarmed by the burning threat of tears in her eyes. “It is exactly that. How do you fight against the Empire, then, if you know there are soldiers who want to keep to their rules and codes?”

Silver stirred her caff, taking another careful sip before she spoke. “The opportunity comes up often when we raid Imperial bases. If things work out that we capture prisoners, we give them a choice: Stay with us and help the Lothal defend their homes, or go back to the garrisons.” Her expression cooled. “The ones who choose to go back to the garrisons, to them, we say: “If we see you again on the battlefield, there will be no mercy from those you have come to slay.”

“You speak like someone who spent a long time preparing to go to the Core Worlds,” Mara noted, while filing the rest of that information away. She wondered if it was Tanno’baijii who insisted upon the choice, or the Lothal themselves.

Silver nodded. “I did, yes. I was preparing to go on full scholarship to an academy on Alderaan. I had to delay when I came down with an infection in my jaw, one that the local antibiotics could not disperse. By the time it became clear we would need to go offworld for better treatment against a flesh-eating bacteria, the blockade went up. Our pleas to be let through, to let me receive treatment, or to at least be sent on to my school—all such requests were denied.” Silver’s eye lowered. “The infection grew worse, but after the rebels made a point of leaving Lothal, we all thought, ‘Surely the blockade will go down now. Surely the Governor will see that such a thing is not necessary.’”

“Eventually, surgery was required to spare my life. At least our medics still had proper anesthetics at the time.” Silver wiped her eye and then shook her head. “We were perfect citizens in word and deed, and it did not matter. I suspect it never truly mattered, but for those of us who were loyal to the Empire, the betrayal hurt so much. Then we began to starve, and to die, and the betrayal was so much worse. We were told that Tarkin’s orders were clear. There would be no importing of foodstuff, of medicines, of supplies, of seed or brooding nerf.”

Mara thought to point out that the blockade had ultimately saved Silver’s life, given she would still have been on Alderaan when it was destroyed, but that felt unpolitic, and perhaps…cruel.

“Can you tell me, dear friend?” Silver was still dabbing at her eye, which insisted on a steady flow of tears. “Can you explain to me what terrible thing we had done that we deserved to be imprisoned until starvation and disease ultimately wiped out the entirety of the Lothal? I ask this question of so many, but few ever have an answer.”

 _Because you disobeyed,_ Mara wanted to say, but refrained. That was her own loyalty to the Empire speaking, trying to insist that there was a reason for these extremes.

“What did Tanno’baijii say?” she asked instead.

Silver managed to stop the flow of her tears, sniffed, and leaned back. “He said we had done nothing. Nothing to deserve it.” Silver pressed her lips together. “So I asked him, ‘Why? Why then? Why us!’”

She looked down at her caff, spied the grainy nature of what was left on bottom, and pushed it aside. “Ben said…he said that Tarkin did not see us as people. To Tarkin, we were statistics. We were chess pieces. Tarkin’s only desire was winning the game, whatever the game happened to be.”

Mara nodded, feeling cold prickling across her skin. Tarkin had decimated an entire planet to capture six rebels, deviants that had already left the world behind. Tarkin had threatened a Core world with a superweapon on the off-chance that it might convince its princess to surrender the whole of the Alliance, just to save her people.

Then Tarkin destroyed Alderaan, anyway. Mara still remembered her quiet shock, and the Imperial Court’s hushed, frightened whispers. The Emperor had later announced Alderaan’s destruction to be the work of terrorists, members of that so-called Rebel Alliance.

Mara had known better, as had many on Imperial Center. The rest of the galaxy recognized it, too. Tarkin’s damned arrogance had driven hundreds of thousands of individuals, and sometimes whole systems, into outright rebellion.

She found Tanno’baijii easily enough, since he tended to hide in their shared, tiny quarters if he wasn’t directly needed. She hesitated when she saw him, sitting in lotus with his eyes closed. There was a brief moment in which she could feel the Force…and then it was gone again.

“If the Empire had done even half of what you were doing now to help these people, the whole of Lothal would be loyal to the Empire until the stars went out,” Mara said.

His eyes flickered open. “Yes, they would.”

“But then _why didn’t they?_ ” Mara asked, aware that she sounded desperate. “The Empire deciding on a permanent blockade—it doesn’t even make tactical sense, let alone political sense!”

“It’s easy to vilify people you’ve never met,” Tanno’baijii said, stretching his arms up over his head and producing several loud cracks. “All it takes is the right event, twisted by word and perspective, and you can convince the public of pretty much anything.”

“You’re not just talking about the Lothal.” Mara slumped down on her bed, feeling sick and empty. Her methods of causing Karrde’s death were becoming ever more imaginative.

“No. It’s a tried-and-true manipulative political tool, and Sidious was a master at it.” Tanno’baijii laid back and stretched out on the bed, one knee cocked. “He used it effectively against the Confederacy, painting the Republic’s actions as glorious and theirs as depraved, no matter the battle or its outcome. Hell, he used it against the Jedi.”

Mara looked at him, but Tanno’baijii was staring up at the low ceiling. “How?”

“Slowly. First there was the creation of the army at a Jedi’s behest, though the Order itself never knew of its existence until I found it. Then war broke out, and it was so convenient that the Jedi now had an army, so we could fight back. There was the creation of the non-clone contingents and officers, and then the Moffs were established. Palpatine took control of the army from the Order and gave the military its own auspices, under control of the Senate.”

His mouth twisted. “We fought that one—the clones were all but slaves as it was, and Tarkin had no qualms about making sure they stayed that way. But since we fought, it was more fuel for the fire that Palpatine was building with every day that passed. Then, when evidence arose that the Chancellor was duplicitous, and the arrest attempt was made…”

Tanno’baijii sighed. “So many suspicious moments could so easily be shifted and twisted into a Jedi attempt at rebellion. The people were used to war, used to hating an enemy of the Republic. When the CIS was all but defeated, Sidious gave them a new one. It worked so well that I never once saw the media discuss the children that were slaughtered in their beds.”

“What?” Mara repeated, eyes widening. “Children?”

Tanno’baijii turned his head to look at her. “History remembers the march on the Jedi Temple, and the ‘righteous’ cleansing the military performed of the vile traitors. History does not mention that most of the Temple’s population at that time consisted of children, toddlers, and infants.”

Mara felt her stomach turn over. “They—”

“Shot the infants in their cradles. Children in their beds. Padawans who were too young to be fighting in the war. The injured Jedi who lay in the Ward. Retired old Jedi Masters who didn’t fight because they were too frail. Non-Jedi support staff. Everyone.”

“Why?”

“It was war,” he said. “The Republic was certain that we deserved it.”

Mara glared at him, infuriated and feeling bile trying to climb up her throat. “It’s not the same thing,” she whispered.

“If you can come up with a legitimate reason why it isn’t the same thing, I will listen to it.” Tanno’baijii’s expression was not closed off, but it was more serious, more intense than usual. “It does _not_ count to say that sides were chosen. Underage children are not lawfully able to make those kinds of decisions—not in the Republic, not even in the Empire. Tell me why the Lothal deserved to be starved out, why the Order deserved to be executed to the last infant in its halls. Convince me that Alderaan deserved its fate.”

“I would have to think about it,” Mara said, but she had the uncomfortable feeling that she was going to fail in that task. “What you said before—about the Emperor’s laws against deviant sexual behavior. If he was…as you say, why make the laws in the first place?”

Mara suspected it was Venge who answered her. “Because hate is a powerful weapon.”

 

*          *          *          *

 

Tanno’baijii had a pattern, in the vaguest of senses. The fact that the pattern had no set schedule and happened entirely at random kept Mara from being driven insane by her assignment’s predictability.

He would sleep maybe five hours a day, total, but not all at once. He was on the move too often, making himself available to the thousands of Lothal crowding the tunnel systems. To their credit, the tunnels were never so full that it was impossible to move. It just _felt_ that way to Mara, who had never liked extended periods of time underground. Tanno’baijii took his meals when someone reminded him to eat, cleaned when dignity demanded it, and otherwise only returned to their room to meditate in silence. Mara watched each meditation session while being haunted by the random, short-lived moments in which she could feel the Force.

Tanno’baijii never specifically claimed to be the Lothal’s leader, but there was no doubt that a leader was exactly what he was. The Lothal lieutenants—Silver, Black, Grey, Turkey, Bret, Tamassa, and Hival—were extremely competent, but they still invariably came to him to get final confirmation on questionable decisions.

Silver led the spy brigade, teaching her students the art of social engineering. “Spying,” she said to her loyal crew, “is ten percent gadgetry, slicing, and data retrieval, and eighty-five percent knowing just how to manipulate your targets into getting what you want without a shot ever needing to be fired.”

“What’s the other five percent?” a Rodian girl wished to know.

Silver had lifted her chin, shoulders drawn back, and assumed a proud, haughty stance. “Poise, dear. You walk into every situation like you own the room, and they will believe it.”

 _I knew there was a reason I liked you,_ Mara thought, while hiding an approving smile.

Bret was training an entire cadre of humans and Rodians of assorted ages the fine art of demolitions, tactical or otherwise. One of the Gotals really wanted to join up, but the signals used for detonation gave her migraines, so she did the next best thing and learned to combine raw materials and produce varying types of explosives.

When Tanno’baijii sat in on one of Bret’s sessions for an hour, Mara watched the thunderous, white-haired man chew people out, congratulate them, threaten to set someone on fire, wax poetic about wiring, and generally behave like one of the most knowledgeable men in the base.

“Clone Wars veteran,” Tanno’baijii told her in a low voice. “Colonel Fitz Bret, from the first non-clone volunteer regiment, those who joined up before Tarkin and the Moffs took the reins.” Mara nodded; that explained the military vibe Bret gave off even when he wasn’t trying to.

Tamassa was the Lothal’s medical coordinator. She was knowledgeable, and had convinced ninety-percent of Lothal’s remaining medical infrastructure to either join the cause outright or support the rebellion by standing ready with bandages and stitching thread. Her latest goal was calculating a stridently fair distribution of the small bacta packs Karrde had managed to obtain for the last supply run.

Turkey, Black, and Grey were field commanders. Grey was a no-nonsense woman, barely finished growing, who kept base goings coordinated by being equal parts efficient and terrifying. No one had been able to find out for certain if Grey slept or not, but everyone knew that she took pride in eating up depth of field with the blaster equivalent of an arm canon.

Black was an excellent sniper, but he was also the dubbed fleet commander for the Lothal’s ragtag, rickety collection of speeders, swoops, bikes, and overland transports. He sometimes pulled double duty as maintenance chief, but most of that work was assigned to the greasemonkeys and their myriad new apprentices.

Turkey could disassemble and rebuild her rifle in her sleep, and had a bad habit of whistling her lack of concern while walking along through skirmishes and returning fire. Mara hadn’t decided yet if Turkey was insane, or if it was the fatalistic approach used by some of the better soldiers Mara had known in the Imperial military. If it was the latter, it wouldn’t be long before Turkey became one of the scariest soldiers on Lothal.

The Rodian, Hival, was weapons-training, taking on those who had never touched a blaster on up through professed professionals. Hival usually made a public, humiliating point of ensuring that said “professionals” discovered that they were not actually that good, and would then retrain accordingly. Tanno’baijii told her that Hival also had an eye for those who should never weapons-train at all, and would send them on to the right sort of job. Supposedly, Hival had yet to be wrong, but Mara just thought that maybe the Lothal hadn’t felt the need to complain overly much. Inside the tunnels, they were warm, dry, relatively safe, had three meals a day and access to medical care. Most of those residing on Lothal’s surface could not say the same, though the rebels were doing their best to keep the overlanders in food and medicine. The difficulty lay in keeping the delivered supplies out of Imperial hands.

 _Dammit,_ Mara thought in dismay, following Tanno’baijii as he headed for one of the tunnel exists. _I’m adopting the lingo, and I’m thinking of Imperial soldiers as the enemy. I’ve gone native, and it’s terrible._

“What are we doing out here?” Mara asked, once Tanno’baijii had given the all-clear.

He sat down on the grass and pulled one of Grey’s home-rolled tabacc sticks from his jacket pocket. “Stress break. One for you?”

“I’ll pass, thanks,” Mara said, lips turning down in distaste. “I like my lungs.”

“So do I,” Tanno’baijii said, and lit the tabacc stick without using match or mechanical flame. He took a long drag, blew out smoke that was both acrid and sweet-smelling, and sighed. “But I’m estimating another six months of this war, and there isn’t a damned drop of alcohol on this world. I will thank everyone not to comment on my bad habits.”

“I doubt any of the Lothal will ever have anything bad to say about you.” Mara glared at a Lothcat that crept out of the grass, warning it away from its attempt to stalk her. “You could strip naked and walk around on your hands for the next ten-day, and they would still adore you.”

Tanno’baijii took another drag from the stick, eyes narrowing in irritation. “I don’t want to be adored. I just want these people safe.”

“Why?”

He shrugged. “They kept me safe when they didn’t have to do so. Nothing wrong with returning the favor. Fucking hells, Jade, it’s my _job_.”

Mara frowned. “You’re not a Jedi any longer.”

“Wrong.” Tanno’baijii was smiling. “I am a Jedi Master. I am _also_ a fully trained and named Lord of the Sith.”

Mara hadn’t expected him to actually admit to Venge’s continued existence, let alone claim a Jedi’s Mastery. “How in the hell can you be both?” she asked in disbelief.

Tanno’baijii tilted his head, the tabacc stick resting on his lips. “I’m still working that out. The pendulum used to swing wildly back and forth, but now the extremes are…less. I have times when I am a Jedi; I have times when I am very much the Sith he named me to be. Most often of late, I’ve been both and neither, all at once.” He smiled. “Any Sith I met would be confused or disdainful, and any Jedi I met from the old guard would be trying their hardest to stick a lightsaber through my heart. I would seem Fallen to them, even though it’s not absolute Darkness at all. It’s …” His eyebrows drew together, as if searching for the right word. “It’s more like a fog bank.”

“Fog,” Mara repeated, trying not to smile at the ridiculous choice of metaphor.

“Sure.” Tanno’baijii blew jets of smoke from his nose before making a face. “Damn, I forgot how much that burns,” he muttered. Then he said, “What happens to sunlight when it strikes fog?”

“It illuminates the fog,” Mara said, “though it doesn’t disperse the fog, not until the ambient temperature rises.”

“What happens to a fog bank at night?”

Mara gave him a look of patient tolerance. “Not much. It’s still…” she trailed off. “It’s not dark then, either. Even if there’s no moon, the ambient light from the stars makes it visible, even if it’s not bright.”

“Exactly.” Tanno’baijii took the tabacc stick from his mouth and flicked glowing embers and ash down onto the dusty soil. He covered the embers with sand before the wind could take them.

“I’m not wholly Light, but I can see it and use it, and be warmed by it. I’m not completely Dark, but I can see it and use it, exist in it, but it still cannot disperse the Light.”

“You’re going to have to work on your analogies.” Mara gave him an amused look. “I understood that, but it’s a complicated way to make your point.”

“I’m aware.” Tanno’baijii stuck the tabacc stick between his lips again, letting it rest there while the end of the stick burned a dull red. “I’d just say ‘Gray Jedi’ but too many Jedi of the old Order were prone to think the worst of that lot, too. That’s also risking a potential lightsaber stabbing.”

“I…would prefer that they didn’t,” Mara said, hesitant. “Stab you, I mean.”

“Thanks. So would I.” He was smiling as he flicked off and buried more ash.

“Your Order seemed to have inflexible standards,” Mara said, after the tabacc stick had been extinguished.

Tanno’baijii was nodding his agreement. “We did, yes. It took me a long time to realize that a lot of our absolute truths and philosophies were not really as important as I had been raised to believe. The Order had reached a state of stagnation, recognized far too late to do us any good. There was a terrible reliance on a one-size-fits-all philosophy, this idea that everyone could live under the same rules and restrictions and not only be content, but flourish.”

“I’m an Imperial girl, and even I know that sounds extremely speciesist,” Mara said flatly.

He shrugged. “That’s the Ruusan Reformation for you. Core-centric and human-centric, and it created laws that dramatically changed the Order while ignoring twenty-four thousand years of history.”

Tanno’baijii looked up at the sky, and Mara found herself following his gaze. Without the light pollution from the cities, there was a wide and incredible swath of brilliant stars shining overhead. She considered stargazing a pointless activity, but even her sense of aesthetics could recognize that it was a beautiful view.

“Why are you here, Jade?”

“Because Karrde sent me here,” Mara replied automatically.

“Yes, and I’m sure it was an excellent excuse,” Tanno’baijii said, looking at her from the corner of his eye. “If you didn’t want to be here, you would have found a way to get out of it. Tell me why you’re really here.”

After a long, silence debate, Mara gave in. “I can’t,” she said, and then crossed her arms and turned away. “I can’t give you a good reason why Alderaan deserved to be destroyed. I can’t give you a good reason why the Lothal were meant to starve and die, or why your Order was wiped out to the last remaining child.”

“Why not?” His voice was soft, and without judgement. For a brief moment, she hated him just as fiercely as she hated her Master’s murderer.

“Because there _are_ no good reasons!” Mara snarled. “I always believed that the Empire worked for the common good, that I was helping to protect its citizens. I _believed_ that it was the criminal elements, the rebels, and the dissidents that contributed to chaos and depravity. I enjoyed every opportunity I was given to make them pay for daring to soil the Emperor’s reign.”

Mara realized she was gasping for breath, on the verge of sobbing, and bowed her head. She cried for no one and no thing.

“There are good Imperials in the military. I’ve known and worked with many. I also met those who were at best, apathetic, and at worst, cruel, and wondered why their cruelty was tolerated. I thought perhaps it served a purpose, but otherwise decided that those men and women were the rarity, not the norm.

“Everything I’ve seen since the Emperor’s death has been showing me that I had it backwards.” Mara bit her lip but refused to look at Tanno’baijii. “After he died, I discovered a criminal I was supposed to assassinate was still alive—the leader of Black Nebula. I thought if I could finish that job, then that would be one less problem, something to help the Empire survive the Emperor’s loss. It was an excuse. It was just one last chance to complete the final assignment he’d ever given me.

“I was also overlooking one very important fact: I was on the run from Ysanne Isard, who would really like to see me dead.”

“Well, I’d like to see her dead, too, so I’m sure we can work something out,” Venge said in a mild voice. When she looked over at him, his eyes were pale gold, not their typical silver. It gave her a jolt of grief and homesickness; the Emperor’s eyes had glowed with his strength in the Force, a strong amber light that was visible even in the gloom he preferred to rest in, which he claimed was kinder on his old body.

“I was on an Outer Rim planet, but still Imperial-controlled. There were so many beggars out in the street, ragged and starving. They were all aliens, none of them human.” Mara swallowed, shoving her emotions back down where they belonged. “I asked them how they could be in such condition, on a world that I knew had a decent economy, and no reported instances of famine or rampant poverty. They laughed at me. They said that I must be Core and spoiled, to not know that aliens weren’t allowed to work on human worlds without special permission from the governor.

“I thought that I was fighting to protect _every_ member of the Empire. But that was never true at all. All these criminal groups, always so full of aliens and so few humans…” Mara clenched her jaw. “It was the only option they had, wasn’t it? It was either crime or starvation.”

“Usually.”

Mara nodded, and knew her anger was marking her face and burning in her eyes. “I was too willingly blind to see it, but I am not blind anymore. The Imperials on Lothal are not part of the Empire I wanted to serve. Neither is Tarkin and his arrogance, his destruction of billions on the off-chance it might gain him a fragment of intelligence. I don’t slaughter children. I refuse to contribute to the plight of the downtrodden.”

Mara lifted her chin and turned to face Tanno’baijii again. He was watching her, a hint of sympathy on his face, but no pity. No; she knew he would never disrespect her that way. “I am an assassin. I was trained to be a weapon that delivered the Emperor’s justice. I cannot be a Jedi—I never liked your Order’s high-handed morality on what was right and proper—and I won’t be a Sith, but you told me I had the potential to be an apprentice in my own right.” She drew in a calming breath. “I want you to prove it.”

Tanno’baijii didn’t say yes, or no. Instead, he asked, “Do you know how to meditate, Mara?”

It was the first time Tanno’baijii had used her given name on its own. It felt appropriate now, where before it would have made her angry. “No.”

“Then that is where we will start.”

“All right,” Mara agreed. “Why?”

She could tell when all of Venge quieted again. It was a gentling of his features, a measure of calm that soothed rather than grated. “Meditation is the basic first step of teaching yourself how to quiet your mind and listen to the Force. You’ve been grasping for it without any clear idea of how to catch hold. This will help.”

“Is that all I will be doing? Meditating?” Mara asked, trying not to sound doubtful.

Tanno’baijii smiled at her, playful and a bit manic. “You have a lightsaber hidden in your belongings. No, Mara Jade. That is definitely not the only thing we will be doing.”

 

*          *          *          *

 

Things changed, after that first evening of meditation, and yet they did not change at all. Mara was bollocks at meditation and knew it, but even a single fifteen minute session had given her more sensation in the Force than she’d been able to feel in over year. She immediately understood its value and kept at it, paying special attention to Tanno’baijii’s warning that there was a distinct difference between “quiet” and “empty,” and that the latter was asking for trouble.

Tanno’baijii took her into the hills, away from the crowded tunnels and prying eyes, for her first session with a lightsaber. Until he’d mentioned it, Mara had no idea he even had a blade.

He kept it tucked into the back of his boot. Mara glared at him at him as he pulled out the silver hilt, wrapped with what looked like black leather. “You’ve had that with you the entire time?”

“Of course,” he said, amused. “Where else would it be?”

 _Good point,_ Mara thought. “That can’t be comfortable,” she said instead.

“It’s in a pocket, not just shoved in against my leg. That wouldn’t just be uncomfortable, that would fucking hurt.” Tanno’baijii ignited the lightsaber, revealing a blade that was a much deeper color than the pale blue she’d seen of Jedi lightsabers in flatpics and old vid footage.

“What’s your real name?” Mara asked. There wasn’t a lot of variation in Jedi lightsaber color, and the rarer blades tended to be attached to well-known names.

He looked at her in surprise. “Sidious didn’t tell you?”

Mara shook her head. “No. He said it would be pointless to tell me, that you would have changed your name to avoid detection by the Empire. I was supposed to recognize you by appearance, or by your abilities.”

“That does not sound like the act of a man who wanted me found,” Tanno’baijii said, and made several tight swings of the lightsaber, cutting the air. If she had to identify the expression on his face as he twirled the blade, Mara would have called it wistfulness.

“I suppose not.” Sidious had respected Venge, yes, but one thing Mara had never dared voice was the fact that she’d recognized that Sidious also _feared_ him. One did not accuse the Emperor of feeling fear. Not if one wanted to live. “You don’t have to tell me.”

“Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

She stared at him. “What.”

Tanno’baijii was smiling. “I know. It’s always such a disappointment, isn’t it?”

“You smoke, swear like a smuggler on a bad run, kill stormtroopers by the dozens, and forget to eat half the time unless we remind you,” Mara said. “Wasn’t Kenobi supposed to be the perfect Jedi Knight?”

He barked out a laugh. “That was a carefully constructed public persona, Mara. I spent too much time in diplomatic circles, making small talk with people I really didn’t like very much. The real Knight was the one who followed his fellow Jedi on an insane swan dive through Bothawui’s orbit and into the upper atmosphere to break a military blockade.”

“That battle is famous.” Mara waited until he stopped swinging the lightsaber. “That also means that you were the crazy person in the fighter, flying through a blockade that was being disrupted by suited freefall entirely _because_ it had proven impossible to penetrate via fighter.”

Tanno’baijii—Kenobi—shrugged. “Someone had to keep the Separatists from firing on the Jedi performing the freefall.” He smiled again. “I got yelled at by so many people for doing that.”

“It does not seem to have had much effect on your life choices,” Mara said dryly, igniting her lightsaber. She’d almost lost it twice over after escaping Coruscant, and was glad the violet blade had lasted this long. Before Endor, she’d had no special attachment to the weapon; now it had become a symbol of what she’d lost. “There is also a specific report that went to Imperial Center from Vader, stating that you had been killed on the Death Star.”

Tanno’baijii was regarding her with the cool, assessing gaze of an instructor. “You’ve trained in a lightsaber’s use, but you’ve never crossed blades with another,” he said, without acknowledging his reported death.

Mara tried to ignore a shiver that was part fear, part thrill. He was very good, if he’d gathered that just from a few seconds’ observation. “Yes. I’ve defended myself against remotes. I’ve also trained to defend against real weaponry, and have used it in combat on occasion, though it wasn’t my favorite weapon.”

“Because of its apparent lack of long-range tactical advantage.”

Mara nodded. “No dueling, though.” It had been forbidden. Mara was trying her best to ignore the tiny, irritating voice that insisted it knew why she had not been allowed to do so.

Tanno’baijii was still considering her. “If you were a student in the Temple, I’d ask you to demonstrate what you knew. You wouldn’t engage another’s lightsaber for days or weeks, if not months.”

Mara tried not to look disappointed. “I am not a student in your Temple.”

“No. You are incredibly well-trained in some areas, and astonishingly undeveloped in others. Does your lightsaber have a means to adjust the strength of the blade?” he asked.

“No.”

“Pity,” Tanno’baijii said, and raised his lightsaber. “I will just have to make certain that we don’t kill each other.”

Stars, but no wonder the Emperor had forbidden her to learn more about a lightsaber. Dueling was an absolute _joy_ , and Mara never wanted to stop. This was how she always felt in combat, when there was nothing to distract from the motion of her body, the aim of her blaster or the stroke of a vibroblade.

Tanno’baijii, or Venge, or Kenobi—whoever she fought—did not hammer her mercilessly, as her old teachers might have. Nor did he let her flail her way into intentional openings. He stayed perfectly at her skill level, allowing Mara to choose her assaults, to decide her defense, but countering and attacking in ways that made her think about her next move. It was rather like a mental game of skill, except that her palms stung, her arms ached from unaccustomed strain, and she was sweating through her durable practice clothes.

Tanno’baijii called a halt by doing nothing more than stepping back and holding up his hand. It was a brief temptation, to step in and take advantage, but Mara held herself in check. Lopping off Tanno’baijii’s hands would not get her more duels such as these.

Mara doubted she would succeed, anyway. He was sweating much as she was, but his eyes were clear. It was a sham of weakness, a posture that screamed a lack of defense but was actually the opposite.

“How do you feel?”

The question snapped Mara out of the tactician’s mindset, enough to make her realize there was a smile on her face. “Fine,” she muttered. She forced the expression away, irritated by the loss of control.

“He never wished you to feel joy, did he?” Tanno’baijii sounded frustrated. “He trained you into snuffing your own damned potential.”

Mara shook her head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She realized her lightsaber was still ignited, clenched in her right hand so tightly that it was going to leave its shape pressed into her palm.

“We were fighting for over an hour,” he said.

Mara resisted the urge to shake her head again in denial. “It’s not—”

It couldn’t have been.

Except her lungs burned. Her muscles shook. She was soaked to the bone.

Tanno’baijii just nodded. “That intensity you felt? That is the Force.”

Mara pressed her lips together, trying to come up with a question that was not abject disbelief. She’d had enough of her own ridiculous clinging. “Light or Dark?” she asked. Sidious had always claimed the Light to be useless, fit only for weak fools.

“I suppose that depends on your point of view,” Tanno’baijii said, which was maddening until he explained. “There is no Light or Dark in the Force, Mara Jade. The Force simply _is_. Our actions lend it Darkness or Light.”

Mara finally convinced her thumb that it was safe to deactivate her blade. “Or something in-between.”

Tanno’baijii smiled. “Yes.”

Mara lowered the deactivated hilt. She wanted to do this again, immediately, but she knew the limits of her own body. “This…it made me…happy,” she admitted. “But, it was…”

“Fierce,” Tanno’baijii suggested, a knowing look in his eyes.

“Yes.”

“You can be Light or Dark, as you choose,” he told her. “Joy can be the same way.”

“Or I can be a fog bank?” Mara asked, allowing herself a smile.

Tanno’baijii’s grin had a delightfully feral quality. “Oh, absolutely.”

 

*          *          *          *

 

Mara stood quietly against the wall, almost in shadow, and watched the briefing unfold. She would prefer to be closer, to be in the bodyguard position she was officially supposed to take, but…but she trusted these people not to stab Tanno’baijii in the back. It was an odd sensation.

If trust and her own instincts failed, Mara had absolute faith that he could take care of the problem himself.

“We’ve put in enough of the raids that the Imps are plotting their defense of the Thule Garrison as we speak. The radio chatter is full of dead certainty that our pathetic rebel group is going to attack in the morning between shift-changes,” Tanno’baijii said, and then he grinned and looked at Black. “Sir Greene, if you would, please.”

Black stepped forward, shoving his hair out of his eyes. Mara thought he had absolutely atrocious grooming for a sniper, but he still hit everything he aimed for, so it wasn’t her place to tell him to get a damned haircut. “We also got word from the slicers. The Imps know Thule is a trick, but Druhl is convinced we’re after the Valley Garrison instead. They’re concentrating their forces up north.”

“So what _are_ we going to be blowing up, then?” someone out of Mara’s sight asked.

“Nothing,” Tanno’baijii said, still smiling. “All of the garrisons will be on high alert, whether or not they have forces amassed. We’re going to let them sweat for the entire night and day, wondering when we’re going to pour out of the woodwork and start shooting. Ssefin?”

One of the farmers Mara had met in the past few weeks stepped out of the crowd. “This isn’t as fun as blowing up Imps, but listen up. This is the first year that Lothal has had a crop worth selling, and we have a buyer willing to run the blockade _and_ pay handsomely for it. Getting most of the tabacc offworld will keep you young idiots from turning into smoking addicts.” Ssefin glared at Grey, who was unrepentant about the unlit, carefully wrapped bit of tabacc hanging off her lip. “While the Imps are busy shitting their pants, we’re going to sell for a profit. Most of it will go into repairing Lothal’s infrastructure when the Imps are gone, and the rest goes into figuring out new ways to hide the crops, and to feeding those who work the fields at night.”

Tanno’baijii pointed at Grey. “Grey is going to assign positions. Some of you are going to be on loading duty, and a great many of you are going to be on perimeter watch.”

“There’s no way the Imps are going to ignore another ship coming down. Colonel Druhl’s got it in for Karrde’s people as it is.” That was Geffes, a young Gotal kid that Tanno’baijii had approved for weapons training. Fourteen Standard was almost too low for Lothal tolerance levels, but Geffes was also one of the best damned snipers in the making that Mara had ever seen.

“No. That’s why the rest of us are going to present as a clustered and obvious moving target about a thousand kliks west,” Tanno’baijii explained, bringing up the holomap. It spat unhappily about lighting up, and the images were fuzzy, but the landscape was recognizable. “The loading is happening here, in the shelter of the mountains. We’re going to be here, on the outskirts of Capital City.”

Silver seemed pleased. “They will think we plan to attack the Academy Garrison.”

“Which we are not actually going to do,” Tanno’baijii said, and then gave the kids a stern glare. “I mean it. Even if they’re on a skeleton crew, they have ground canons that could turn you to vapor, and you don’t need a full command structure to fire them. We’re not ready for that kind of assault yet.”

“The Imps don’t know that,” Turkey pointed out. Mara desperately, desperately wanted to know who had had the absolute gall to name their child after a smelly bird, and _why_.

“And we’re not going to be telling them, either,” Tanno’baijii replied. “Any questions?” There was an undercurrent of murmuring, but no actual questions voiced. “All right, then. Get your assignment from Grey. We go out on bikes and speeders via the coastal tunnels at twenty-third hour.”

It took Druhl and Eross three blasted hours to take the bait. Mara worried about the Lothal loading tabacc, and then got angry at herself for worrying. Those were soldiers who’d gone out on perimeter duty, and soldiers knew what they had signed up for.

They were drifting on bikes to the east of the city. The old Senate tower was visible in the distance, illuminated from light reflected by the garrison. Mara could hear the echoes of soldiers and equipment being mustered. She put them at ten minutes out—probably less.

“At least we’re not parked outside of Shit Town,” Grey said, lighting up another tabacc stick.

“Please don’t call it that,” Tanno’baijii said. “People live there. Eight minutes,” he added, which matched up with Mara’s internal clock nicely.

“Poor bastards,” Grey muttered. “Everyone, make sure you’ve got an extra pack. If Commander Eross panics, he’ll send out everything he’s got. There’s just twenty of us, so make it count.”

“Remember that we’re not here to win a battle.” Tanno’baijii was checking the charges on both blasters he carried. “We deal with the first rush, and then we’re running south. Try and look like pathetic moving targets that the Imperials can’t resist chasing.”

Goteemn coughed discreetly. “We _are_ pathetic moving targets that the Imps can’t resist chasing.”

“Excellent! Then there shouldn’t be any problems.” Tanno’baijii rested his blasters on his thighs, waiting with all the patience of an ice-eyed statue for the Imperials to roll down upon them.

Credit to Eross, he did know how to keep his men timely. The first Imperial speederbikes hit the firing line as Mara reached thirty seconds in her head. She still didn’t like the idea of killing soldiers, ones that might still believe they were fighting for good reasons. Disabling shots were harder to manage in combat conditions, but Mara had been the Emperor’s favorite for a reason, and it wasn’t her damned dancing.

The first wave was all but dealt with before Mara realized that Tanno’baijii was also taking disabling shots when he could, as were the other Lothal. There were still Imperial bodies on the ground when it was done, but most of them were wounded, not dead. Mara thought the Imperials lost three soldiers out of forty; the Lothal were down one Rodian, injured and ordered to retreat.

The echo reached Mara’s ears before the repulsorlifts did. She dropped a dying charge from her blaster, shoved a new one in, and turned to yell at the Lothal. “Incoming! Armored transports, twenty per ship, canons engaged!”

“Well, _fuck_ ,” Tanno’baijii said feelingly. He holstered one of his blasters and retrieved his lightsaber. “Jade!”

“Shit,” Mara hissed, one of the few times she allowed a Rimsucker’s vocabulary to pass her lips. She shoved one blaster into its holster and yanked her lightsaber free of the makeshift pocket she’d sewn into her coat. “We’d better not be bait, Tanno’baijii!”

He grinned at her, a flicker of gold shining in his eyes. “Of course not. I just thought it was time to fuel the rumor mill.”

“Of course you did,” Mara retorted, steadying her hands on her weapons. The gold soothed her nerves when words would not have. “Thirty seconds!”

Before her internal countdown reached five, one of the transport canons fired. Tanno’baijii intercepted the blast on his lightsaber. Mara shielded her eyes as the man almost disappeared in the weapon’s discharge corona—

—and then the blast was reflected right back at the ship that had fired it. The armored transport jinked to the side, but left its sister ship undefended. The next transport in line went down with fire in her nose.

“Bug out!” Grey yelled, standing up on her bike rails while laying down a heavy stream of suppressing fire. “Fifty kliks south and regroup! Go!”

Mara wound up riding next to Tanno'baijii. “Are you all right?” she shouted over the wind.

Tanno'baijii flexed his hands on the controls. His skin was reddened but not blistering. “They fire a lot hotter than they used to!”

“You walked into a canon blast with a lightsaber!” Mara ducked her head when a laser blast came too close. “How in the hell did your people believe you sane?”

“Everyone always blamed Anakin!” he yelled back, grinning.

Mara bent over double when a canon blast struck the ground in her bike’s wake. It took steady hands on the controls and a hell of a nudge to the accelerator to keep flying on an even keel. “If they keep firing, we’re going to lose people!”

“I know!” Tanno’baijii tapped the comm wrapped around his ear. “Grey! Can we afford to lose a bike?”

“Are you fucking—no! Unless it means we live, in which case, Black can whine all he likes about stealing a replacement!” Grey shouted back. “We’ve got three transports riding our asses, Ben!”

“What if I can make it two?”

“I will give you the best damn blowjob you’ve ever had in your life, Boss!”

Mara couldn’t hear it, but she was certain Tanno’baijii was sighing. “That won’t be necessary.”

“What the hell are you going to do?” Mara asked, firing over her shoulder without turning her head. There was a satisfying crunch as an Imperial tumbled off his bike and got hit by the next speeder in line.

“Just be ready for a pick-up!” Tanno’baijii yelled, and then released the stabilizer on the repulsor at the same time as he cut the thrust. The bike shot up and back; Mara cursed and compensated for the wake it left behind.

 _Turn around_ , Mara thought, and obeyed the instinct without question. She slammed the control yoke to one side, cut thrust while letting it burn on the opposite, and almost spun the bike around a full three-hundred sixty degrees before regaining control and shooting right towards Imperial guns.

There was a bright bloom of light overhead, followed a second later by the roar of an explosion. _Tanno’baijii, what in the name of all the hells did you do?_

Mara shot the pilots of the three leading bikes and chanced a glance upwards, just in time to see a flaming transport lose guidance and crash right into the transport at its wing. She thought she could see the tail end of a speeder emerging from the viewscreen of the first transport.

_Tanno’baijii!_

_Wow, you are loud!_ Mara heard. Then the poor, unfortunate Imperial soldier trying to aim his blaster at Mara was all but crushed as Tanno’baijii came down on him. The soldier went off the bike with a strangled yell; Tanno’baijii gained control and piloted with one arm.

Mara kicked forward and caught up with him, greatly tempted to punch a Jedi Master in the face. “How did your Order _not realize_ that Skywalker was the sane one? Darth Vader was not in the habit of throwing himself at gunships!” She’d seen Vader in the field. He had been merciless and homicidal, but otherwise methodical.

Tanno’baijii’s hair was singed, there was a burn across his eye, and Mara suspected he’d broken an arm tackling that stormtrooper. He was still smiling, though, the bastard. “Honestly, Mara, I have no idea. Oh, and there goes the last one,” he said, just as the remaining gunship developed a fire blossom on its side. “Good job, Grey!”

Mara rolled her eyes. “I’ve changed my mind. Everything else aside, Karrde was right to assign me here. You need a damned babysitter, Tanno’baijii.”

Her comm clicked on. “Sir, we’ve just received confirmation that the buyer has lifted off with the packages,” Viffax reported. “We’re free to clear out and go home the moment we shake pursuit.”

“Copy. Split up, shake your tails, go home, and see Tamassa in medical to get clearance. Yes, even if you haven’t been shot,” Tanno’baijii clarified, when Goteemn tried to protest. “Bruises count. We just pissed off Druhl, which means everyone needs to be in prime condition if the fucker tries to come calling. No excuses.”

A quiet chorus of “Sirs” responded, some more mutinous than others. “That better include you,” Mara grumbled.

“It’s a through-and-through,” Tanno’baijii told her. “I could heal it, but that’s energy best spent in other areas. I paid for bacta; it would be stupid not to use it.”

“I keep forgetting that you’re the reasonable sort of crazy,” Mara said, giving him a tight smile that probably looked more like a displeased grimace.

Tanno’baijii saluted her with one burnt finger. “See you back at home,” he said, and sped off to the east.

Mara had shaken six determined tails, and left the smoking wreckage of a seventh buried in a hillside, before his words caught up with her. If the notion of home made her heart clench with longing even as it filled her with burning hatred for Vader, Isard, and Tarkin…well, no one else needed to know.

She refused to admit that a small part of her hatred now bore the Emperor’s name.

 

*          *          *          *

 

“I hear things have been exciting of late,” Karrde said, pouring brandy into two glasses before sliding one across the table.

“If you mean explosive, then yes.” Ben Tanno’baijii settled into the chair opposite, taking up the glass with his right hand. “Not swill, yes?”

“Not for one of my best clients, it’s not,” Karrde confirmed. “How’s your arm?”

Ben glanced down at the sling that kept his left arm cradled against his chest. “Mostly healed, but our medics are a loud, demanding lot.”

“Good medics tend to be,” Karrde said. “Thanks for sending the latest Imperial passcodes for the blockade, by the way. It was nice to sail on through instead of dodging a thousand angry TIE fighters.”

“Thank Silver Greene. She’s the one who picked it up.” Ben settled more comfortably in his seat. “We’re a lot closer to stage three.”

“I thought you might be.” Karrde nodded at Aves, who stopped in the room long enough to confirm offload complete. “I have some names.”

“I’d love to see them.”

“Most of them won’t come near the place until the Academy Garrison is dealt with,” Karrde warned him.

“It’s on the to-do list.” Ben let out a pleased sigh after sampling the brandy. “Oh, that’s at least fifty years old. You’re trying to bribe me.”

“Not bribe, per se. Just hoping for honesty,” Karrde said, impressed; Ben was only off by about a year on the brandy.

Ben smiled. “That depends on what you’re asking.”

“Less asking and more…” Karrde hesitated. “I know who you are.”

“Good for you,” Ben replied, and took another drink.

It wasn’t concrete confirmation, but Karrde thought it would do. “I’ve been trying to figure out why you haven’t rejoined the Alliance.”

Ben tilted his head. “Well, I am rather busy here on Lothal, already.”

“Yes, and I’m sure the Lothal appreciate your help as much as I appreciate your money,” Karrde said in a dry voice. “But why?”

“If you know who I am, then you already know the answer to that question,” Ben countered.

“I suppose so,” Karrde admitted, taking a slow drink from his glass. He’d spent enough damned money on the brandy, so he was going to enjoy it. Inflation was hitting alcohol hard when it came to the imports, but he couldn’t afford to go to Corellia every time he felt the urge to imbibe.

“I would damned well love to know what you did that convinced Vader he killed you on the Death Star,” Karrde said.

“Ah, well. He did,” Ben said, and smiled over his drink.

Karrde frowned. “Metaphorically, then.”

Ben shrugged. “If you like.”

“You’re being obtuse,” Karrde accused him.

“And you’re being nosy. I can be as obtuse or as forthcoming as I choose.” There was a bright shine in Ben’s eyes that told Karrde the man was enjoying the verbal wordplay.

“Fine.” Karrde raised his glass and drank half of it. “What are your plans for my employee, Tanno’baijii?”

“Jade?” Ben put his empty glass down. “That depends on her, doesn’t it? Oh, and I always meant to ask why I haven’t seen Carniss and Tapper of late.”

Karrde allowed the partial subject change. Fair was fair. “Tapper’s dead,” he said, his voice still heavy with regret. Tapper had been a decent man, an annoying bastard, and a good friend. “Shot during the same mission I picked up Jade.”

“Carniss?”

Karrde frowned. “Discovered she was spying for Ysanne Isard. I let the Terrik clan make use of her, and then she got herself killed during a battle with the Imperials.”

“I didn’t know the Terrik clan was involved in the war,” Ben said, surprising him.

“Terrik’s daughter decided to wed herself a Rogue Squadron pilot,” Karrde said, amused. Poor damned Booster had moaned for months on end about how the Alliance kept using sex to reel in good smugglers. Karrde had pointed out that at least she’d found a Corellian.

Then Terrik had learned that his daughter’s Corellian was Jedi-descended. Chin claimed his ears were still burning from that particulate tirade.

Karrde debated fishing tactics as he poured each of them a second drink. He didn’t mind sharing the alcohol, and Ben looked tired. Tired people liked to talk, especially if you plied them with very good liquor. “You and Jade are both wearing lightsabers publicly.”

He hadn’t even known that Jade _owned_ a damned lightsaber.

“That we are.” Ben raised his glass in appreciation. “It’s driving the Imperial rumor mill crazy, since there’s only supposed to be one of us, and he spends most of his time with Alliance High Command.”

Matching wits with an ex-Jedi was trying, especially when Ben told him everything and yet nothing at all. “I assigned Mara to be your direct liaison because I’m holding a lot of money on your behalf. Yours is a very lucrative contract. If you’re happy with her presence, I’ll arrange for her to stay during your efforts to enact stage three.”

“Well, I know you’re worried about the money, and I appreciate the concern for my safety, financially-created as it is,” Ben said, amused. “But that isn’t why you assigned Jade to me.”

Karrde bit back a grimace. All or nothing, then.

They sat in comfortable silence while Karrde debated how much to say, and Ben drank his expensive damned brandy. “She needed something from you that I could not supply. I like my employees to be as mentally sound, and as confident, as possible.”

“A good policy.” Ben finished the brandy in his glass. “Sometimes that means that said employees don’t remain in your employ when it’s done.”

“I’ll take that risk,” Karrde said staunchly. “If I lose her as an employee, then at worst, she’s an excellent contact with pre-established trust. At best, I would still have a friend.”

 

*          *          *          *

 

“Friend, hmm?” Tanno’baijii whispered as he stepped out into the hallway.

Mara rolled her eyes. “Karrde would not be the worst sort of friend to have,” she admitted in a low voice. No one had noticed her position in the hallway, including Aves, who’d almost stepped on her toes. She wasn’t going to give herself away by speaking too loud.

Once they were off the _Wilde Karrde_ , Tanno’baijii said, “No, not at all. He’s always been true to his word. If I hadn’t been otherwise engaged, I would have gone to work for him when we first met.”

“Weren’t you in hiding from the Empire?” Mara asked.

“Weren’t you?” he countered, and Mara scowled.

They watched the ship lift off. Aside from Tanno’baijii’s _Urbane Figment,_ the only transport off of Lothal was once again in Imperial hands.

“There’s nothing wrong with being a fog bank _and_ a smuggler, Mara.” Tanno’baijii’s gaze was distant. “It’s an entirely different world, after all.”

“You’re thinking about someone,” Mara guessed.

Tanno’baijii didn’t seem to mind her unsubtle attempt to pry. “I am, yes. There was a bounty hunter I used to know, during the war, named Asajj Ventress.”

Mara frowned. “She was a Separatist assassin, wasn’t she? One of Dooku’s pawns.”

“She started out as a pawn, but she rejected Dooku and eventually wound up hunting.” He smiled. “In less than three years, we went from the bitterest of enemies to a sort of…uneasy, unvocalized truce.”

“Bitterest of enemies?”

“She nearly tortured me to death in a manner that has left me with horrific post-traumatic stress to this very day.” Tanno’baijii’s voice was fairly mild, considering that Mara had been educated in the sorts of torture a Jedi could endure and survive.

“And you didn’t make her very, very dead,” Mara said in a disbelieving voice.

“That’s the trouble,” Tanno’baijii said quietly. “I did.”

Some days, Tanno’baijii’s Jedi morality popped up in the strangest ways. “I would have considered you beyond justified.”

“The war made things complicated. We didn’t know until after the torture that Ventress had been a Jedi Padawan whose Master was killed. She grew up on a world that was violent and war-torn, even by galactic wartime standards. She took her revenge and then found herself a Sith’s Apprentice to ally herself with. She was half-mad by then, had even convinced herself that the Jedi were at fault for her Master’s murder.”

Tanno’baijii glanced at her. “Everyone is capable of change, even those who believe their hearts to be utterly hardened against it. She rejected Dooku, and the CIS, and became a neutral-aligned bounty hunter through the war’s end.”

“Then what happened?” Mara asked, curious.

“When she caught up with me two years after the Purges began, Ventress said that she’d taken a contract on my life.” Tanno’baijii was frowning. “I didn’t even hesitate. We fell to fighting so quickly that I didn’t realize until years afterward that we were acting just as we had at the beginning of the war. We weren’t friends at our last parting, but we weren’t _enemies_ , either.”

“She was still trying to kill you,” Mara pointed out.

“Oh, she was doing an excellent job of making it appear so. She knew exactly what to say to make me angry, to cause me to pay more attention to this renewed _threat_ than the truth behind it.” Tanno’baijii rubbed his forehead, as if pained. “Like she had once been after her Master died, I was half out of my mind with exhaustion, anger, residual pain. If I’d been in better condition, I would have known she didn’t want to kill me. She was goading me into giving _her_ a clean death.”

Mara felt a disturbing hollow in the pit of her stomach. “Why?”

“I think she erred,” Tanno’baijii said. “I think she took a contract from the Emperor himself, and learned too late the truth of what he was. If she’d gone back to him empty-handed…”

“He would have killed her,” Mara finished. That part, she was not surprised by.

“At the very least.” Tanno’baijii sighed. “It’s all conjecture. Maybe I’ve got it wrong. I’d like to be able to ask her.”

“But you don’t think you do. Have it wrong, I mean,” Mara added.

“No. She took a swing at me even as she died, but it wasn’t a fatal blow. It easily could have been.”

“Thanks for killing me, but you’re still a bastard?” Mara suggested, hoping to see some semblance of returned humor. She preferred mania to this dire gloom.

To her relief, Tanno’baijii smiled. “Oh, that would be just like her. Come on,” he said, leading her in a different direction than they’d come from to meet Karrde’s ship. “I’d like to show you something.”

“Does it bite?” Mara asked. She suspected that whatever she was about to be shown, it was Venge’s way of saying thank you. Tanno’baijii would say so outright, but then, he hadn’t been the only one speaking.

Tanno’baijii smirked. “It might.”

She didn’t think he was joking.

He led her to a tunnel entrance Mara hadn’t seen before, and at this point, she was familiar with all of them. “What’s this?” she asked, after almost a half-klik of darkness led to a sealed door. Even in the dim light, she could tell that there were no locks or opening mechanisms on this side.

“It’s a vault, separate from all the other tunnels.” Tanno’baijii ran his hand down the flat slab of door. Mara’s excellent hearing picked up the faint, repetitive clicks of locks sliding apart.

“For your privacy?”

Tanno’baijii shook his head. “For everyone else’s safety.” He pushed the door open, but made her pause in the doorway. “Two rules. Touch nothing. Read nothing.”

The first, Mara thought she could understand, but the second… “Read?”

Tanno’baijii grimaced. “There shouldn’t be anything out in the open, but sometimes I don’t leave this place in the best frame of mind, and I haven’t been inside since you arrived. If you see anything that looks like text, look away and tell me.”

“Right.” Mara followed Tanno’baijii inside, senses alert. What she felt was not fear—not quite—but a disturbing sense of familiarity.

Inside was a well-lit chamber, with a high ceiling buttressed much the same way as the other tunnels. At least here there were no Ugnaught-thefted and converted bathtubs acting as ceiling supports. There were shelves cobbled together from rescued wood and hunks of stone. It had the semblance of a library, but there was no rhyme or reason to it that Mara could detect.

What made her recognize the room’s contents were the two small black pyramids, resting on a single, obvious workdesk.

“They’re fakes,” Tanno’baijii said, startling her. Mara realized she’d been holding her breath, let it out, and insisted on breathing normally. “Well, they’re very well-designed facsimiles. I don’t know what happened to the real Sith holocrons that Sidious had in his collection; they were gone by the time I arrived.”

Tanno’baijii walked over and touched the pointed tip, and then dipped his finger at an angle. A second later a tiny needle popped out where his finger had been, meant to stab the offending digit.

“I can see why you don’t want anyone to touch,” Mara said, trying to pretend her heart was not in her throat. These were her Master’s things. She had never seen any of them before, but she knew the feel of his presence.

“Oh, they’re harmless. Mostly,” Tanno’baijii said, wiping his finger clean on his shirt. “The poison traps in the fake holocrons are so old as to be more inconvenience than anything else.” He looked over at her. “Yes, Mara, it’s all his. This all belonged to the Emperor, from a library in one of his private residences on Coruscant.”

Mara’s hands clenched involuntarily. “That was you. You went to Imperial Center, stole all of this, and then destroyed over two hundred thousand square meters of real estate.”

“I might have overdone it a bit.”

“Two hundred thousand square meters,” Mara repeated, eyebrow raised.

Tanno’baijii nodded, amused, and then went on. “I found everything covered in Shillanis dust, the two holocrons replaced, and a basic motion-sensor trap in place. Whoever set the trap meant to come back, but I beat them to it. Finders keepers.”

“Shillanis,” Mara murmured, and repressed a shiver.

“You know of it.”

“Yes.” She’d hated those training sessions. For weeks, there had been no peace for her to be found, not anywhere, until she had finally mastered purging the paralytic. She had been…eleven? Twelve? She couldn’t quite remember.

“Tell me why I shouldn’t read anything, Tanno’baijii.”

“The Sith had this annoying habit of creating traps within their own documents. Sometimes it was subtle, like hypnosis via pattern and word repetition. More often than not, they would use blood magic. You could pick up one of these books with no intention whatsoever of becoming a Sith, and yet…it would convince you.”

When Mara stared at him in expectation, he explained. “It could be subtle, presenting as an insatiable need to know more. It could be overt, via the blood magic—you could literally put down a single Sith tome and find that your goals had been utterly rewired to the ambition of becoming a Lord of the Sith.”

“Is that what happened to you? Insatiable need, or rewired ambition?”

Tanno’baijii considered it. “It’s different for some people. I know a Jedi Knight who can pick up and read any of the varying Sith documents, and the traps never touch her, never affect her. She can point them out on occasion, but it’s like a natural immunity. I think, in part, that the seed, the desire to have some sort of dominance over another being, has to be in place.”

He smiled, but the expression was ghastly in its lack of humor. “The traps didn’t ensnare me because they didn’t need to. I was reading to learn everything I could of the Sith so that I could destroy Sidious or die trying. Full stop. It’s hard for the trap of ambition to latch hold when part of your life plan revolves around dying.”

Even if she were to be completely honest with herself, Mara had no idea if she would be ensnared by the traps he spoke of. She considered herself strong-willed, but Sidious had warned her of blood magic and its consequences. Even he never dared use it himself—or would not admit to it.

“What do you plan to do with all of this, then?” Mara asked. “If you wanted to burn it, you could have left it in place when you decided to decimate part of Imperial Center.”

“I’m trying to neuter it,” Tanno’baijii said, to her surprise. “Lack of knowledge of the Sith is part of the reason the Jedi lost the war against them. We didn’t know a damned thing beyond bits and pieces of history that were more myth than anything else, and that ignorance was used effectively against us. If I can re-write this drek into something safe to read, so that it’s informative and not a trap waiting to happen, then a Jedi can learn of the past and not be felled by it.”

“Or they could be felled by it by _choosing_ to go Sith on their own, after reading this,” Mara pointed out.

Tanno’baijii nodded. “They could. That’s always a risk. But Jedi Fell during the war without ever once staring a Sith in the face, holding an artifact, or reading their words. To be informed of the danger is to be well-armed against it.”

“Believes that he does, because lived it he did,” an irritated voice announced.

Mara turned her head, confused, certain she and Tanno’baijii had been alone in the vault. To her surprise, a small hologram was standing on the floor a couple of meters away, glaring at them both. She thought it was a strange design, given that the transparent blue holo had long ears, great large eyes, and looked to be no taller than the top of Mara’s boot. She’d never seen any sort of species like it.

“What’s that?” she asked Tanno’baijii.

“‘What’s that?’ she says,” the tiny hologram repeated, and then giggled.

When Mara looked back at Tanno’baijii, he was staring at her in unabashed delight. “Now that is very interesting.”

“Unexpected, this is, is it not?” the hologram chirped. Mara wanted to strangle whoever had encoded the hologram’s Basic module.

Tanno’baijii shook his head. “Perhaps not. Mara Jade, this is Master Yoda, former Head of the Jedi Order, and current pain in the ass.”

Mara blinked in dismay. “You’ve named a holographic companion after the former Head of your Order?” By all the blasted stars, the Jedi Master was not even a meter tall. Sidious had always managed to leave that detail out when recounting his defeat of the Jedi.

“A hologram? A hologram, you say?” the holo chuckled. Then it vanished and reappeared on the tabletop closest to Mara. She didn’t step away, though she desperately wanted to.

Yoda peered directly at her. “A hologram, I am _not_.”

**Author's Note:**

> Discussions of Infanticide, Genocide, Mass Murder, and Sidious being his usual vile self. Discussion of rape/rape of minors but no graphic details, just emotional impact.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Armoured Hearts](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9928205) by [sanerontheinside](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanerontheinside/pseuds/sanerontheinside)




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